Nelly Sfeir Gonzalez

Nelly Sfeir de Gonzalez (Nelly Sfeir Gonzalez) (July 1, 1930 – November 29, 2020) was an American librarian and bibliographer at the University of Illinois. She was a two-time winner of the Jose Toribio Medina International Prize for Latin American bibliographies, a president of Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials, and a founder of the Bolivian Studies Journal. In her country of birth, Bolivia, she was a women's suffragist and licensed lawyer.

Early life and education

Sfeir-Gonzalez was born on July 1, 1930, in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Her parents were Emilio Sfeir and Maria Cabero. Accordingly, Sfeir-Gonzalez's maiden name was Nelly Esther Sfeir Cabero. Sfeir-Gonzalez's lived her early years in the Bolivan altiplano mining town of Oruro, where her father owned a leather tanning factory. Later the family moved to the capital and largest city La Paz, where Sfeir-Gonzalez and her siblings attended the American Institute, a school founded by Methodist missionaries from Illinois. Following high school, Sfeir-Gonzalez studied law at night while working as a clerk at the Romecin department store during the day. Gonzalez studied law at the Higher University of San Andrés (Universidad Mayor de San Andres) in La Paz. She was one of only two women in the graduating class, the other being Graciela Lara de Penaranda. During her time at UMSA, Sfeir-Gonzalez played an active role in the fight for women's suffrage in Bolivia, serving as the president of the Union Femenina Universitaria (Women’s Student Union) and organizing protest marches in 1952 to advocate for women to receive the right to vote in Bolivian national elections, which resulted in Bolivian women obtaining such right. She was also a co-founder of the University Student Theater at UMSA, helping to stage "Nuestra Natacha" by Alejandro Casona as the innaugural production. She married civil engineer Walter Gonzalez Gonzalez in 1953 and they raised five sons together. Her father Emilio Sfeir was a hero of Bolivian counter-intelligence during the Guerra del Chaco against Paraguay (Chaco War). Her paternal uncle was the Most Reverend Pietro Sfeir, Titular Archbishop of Nisibi of the Maronite Catholic Church of Antioch. Her older sister Blanca Filomena Sfeir Cabero, an economics graduate from the University of Iowa, was the first woman from Bolivia to receive a Fulbright Scholarship and served as chief procurement officer for Compania Minera de Bolivia--COMIBOL. First cousin Jose Antonio Teran Cabero (known as "El Soldado") is a two-time winner of the Bolivian naitonal poetry prize. A nephew was entertainer Alejandro Hangano Cassab. One of her sons, Mauricio Gonzalez Sfeir served as Secretary of Energy of Bolivia. One of her grandsons was the first Bolivian-American to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship.

Career

Sfeir-Gonzalez graduated from the UMSA law school in 1953. From 1955 to 1959, she accompanied her husband to the University of Illinis at Urbana-Champaign, where he was a graduate student on a Fulbright Scholarship. Upon their return to Bolivia, Sfeir-Gonzalez served as a grade-school Spanish teacher at the American Cooperative School in La Paz starting in 1959. In 1967, Gonzalez and her family moved to Urbana, Illinois, where Sfeir-Gonzalez enrolled in the University of Illinois' Master of Library Science program. Graduating with honors and inducted into the Beta Phi Mu honor society in 1973.

Thereafter, she embarked on a 30-year career at the University of Illinois library, beginning at the clerk level, receiving promotions all the way up to a tenured professorship in Library Administration, and culminating in her appointment as the Head of the Latin American and Caribbean Library in 1986. During her academic career Nelly Sfeir de Gonzalez authored or co-authored five books, including two annotated bibliographies of Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, each of which was awarded the Jose Toribio Medina international prize for best Latin American bibliography of the year in 1987 and 1995, respectively. She also authored 25 chapters in diverse books, 17 articles in journals, and presented 39 papers at academic conferences. Moreover, she obtained more than 40 research grants for the University of Illinois library. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America in the bicentennial year of 1976.

In 1991, Sfeir-Gonzalez served as a founding-editor of the Bolivian Studies Journal.

In 1994, Sfeir-Gonzalez served as the president of Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials.

Sfeir-Gonzalez died from COVID-19 at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Illinois, on November 29, 2020. She was 90 years old.

Premio Ing. Walter Gonzalez a la Excelencia Academica

In 1994, in honor of her deceased husband, Nelly Sfeir Gonzalez established the Premio Ing. Walter Gonzalez a la Excelencia Académica for the top civil engineering student in the graduating class at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres. The prize has been awarded continuously for more than 25 years. It consists of a diploma, a medal of honor, and a monetary payment.

Selected publications

• Gonzalez, Nelly Sfeir de, ed. (1986). Bibliographic guide to Gabriel García Márquez. 1986/92 / comp. by Nelly Sfeir de González. Bibliographies and indexes in world literature. ISBN 978-0-313-28832-6.

Honors and awards

Sfeir-Gonzalez has twice received the José Toribio Medina Award from the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials, first in 1987 and a second time in 1995 for her work on Gabriel García Márquez.

Sfeir-Gonzalez also received the following professional recognition:

• Special Guest Librarian at the Feria Internacional del Libro, Guadalajara, Mexico (1994)
• Award of Merit from the Hispanic American Periodicals Index (2001)
• Invited U.S. librarian at the International Book Fair of Buenos Aires, Argentina (2003)

In 2009, the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials awarded her with an honorary lifetime membership in recognition of career achievement.