Over the last hundred years, the UCLA Library has built one of the most comprehensive collections of Latin American books, periodicals and primary sources in the country. The Library collects comprehensively in international and area studies, including in Latin America and the Caribbean, to support the global mission of UCLA and the research and teaching of students and faculty. In addition to on-the-ground collecting by the Librarian for Latin American Studies, the Library works closely with vendors across the region to unearth hard-to-find books and periodicals, bringing in hundreds of new sources every year.
COLLECTIONS
The Library’s collection is primarily in Spanish, Portuguese and English, but materials are acquired in all languages, including Indigenous and Creole languages of the region. We also acquire materials in a number of indigenous languages from Central and Latin America, including: Aymara, Cakchiquel, Guaraní, Mayan, Mapuche, Nahuatl, Quechua, and Quiche. Overall, the library’s holdings encompass over 400 world languages; some 40% of the collection is in a language other than English. The collection includes a wide range of formats: print books and journals, electronic journals, databases and data sets, digital resources, manuscripts, photographs, ephemera, newspapers, government documents, maps, videos, and sound recordings.
The collection’s strengths lie in the core humanities and social sciences disciplines, including the arts; additional complementary collections in urban planning, management, medicine, public health, library and information science, and law support UCLA’s professional programs. Other resources for faculty and students available across campus include the Chicano Studies Research Center, the Film and Television Archive, Instructional Media Collections and Services, the Institute for Social Research, the Social Science Data Archive, HumTech (Digital Humanities), and the Royce Reading Room.
The library continues to focus on increasing the availability of digital content. The California Digital Library (https: //cdlib.org) (CDL) and the UCLA Library Digital Collections (https: //digital.library.ucla.edu) provide access to more than 135,000 electronic journals and 2,000 licensed database and electronic packages, as well as other digital resources unique to UCLA. Among the licensed digital resources (https: //guides.library.ucla.edu/az.php) with Latin American content available to researchers are the Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI), EcoAmericas, Gale World Scholar, Latin American Women Writers, Brazilian and Portuguese History and Culture: the Oliveira Lima Library, Cuban Culture and Cultural Relations, Global Commodities, Digital National Security Archive, CIAO: Columbia International Affairs Online, JStor, ArtStor, Sociological Abstracts, Nexis Uni, Project Muse, Access World News and Business Source Complete. Unique to UCLA is the Frontera Collection (https: //frontera.library.ucla.edu) of over 20,000 digitized 78 rpm recordings of Mexican popular music recorded between 1905 and 1955. The UCLA Digital Library also provides access to a number of collections digitized from UCLA holdings, including: the Byron McAfee Papers (https: //digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz0009c4d4), the Tulancingo Manuscript Collection (https: //digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz0009gvf4), Latin American Labor Movements Newspapers (https: //digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/z1m05mg3), and the Donn Borcherdt Papers (https: //digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog?f%5Bmember_of_collections_ssim%5D%5B%5D=Donn+Borcherdt+Collection&sort=title_alpha_numeric_ssort+asc).
The UC EScholarship (https: //escholarship.org) repository includes many born-digital papers, articles and journals, primarily by UC authors. Sources for data include the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), Latinobarometer, the Brazilian census and household survey data and many Inter-University Consortia for Political and Social Research data sets, all available through UCLA’s Data Science Center (https: //www.library.ucla.edu/location/data-science-center).
The Library also acquires extensive collections of costly microform sets in order to provide local access to unique archival material held elsewhere and not available digitally. These include sets such as Cuba and the American Sugar Trade: 1897-1920: the Braga Brothers Collection; the Archive of the Brazilian Worker’ Party (PT); A La Izquierda – the Puerto Rican movement; the Yale University Collection of Latin American Manuscripts; and U.S. and Castro’s Cuba, 1950-1970: The Patterson Collection.
The Online Archive of California (https: //oac.cdlib.org) provides online access to significant primary resources at repositories throughout the state, allowing users all over the world to browse, search and discover by using detailed archival finding aids. The Library’s Center for Primary Research and Training(CFPRT) (https: //www.library.ucla.edu/location/library-special-collections/destination/center-primary-research-training-cfprt) trains graduate students in archival methods in order to make lesser-known collections available and teach future scholars about using archival resources. UCLA’s Special Collections has significant Latin American holdings, among them: the Byron McAfee papers on Nahuatl language materials, the Tulancingo (Hidalgo, Mexico) Manuscript Collection, 1567-1882; the Arthur J.O. Anderson Collection of Aztec language materials; the Frederick Starr Papers on Mexican anthropology; and one of the nation’s most significant collections of Brazilian cordel literature.
COLLABORATION
The Library is also part of an extensive network of libraries whose holdings are available via interlibrary loan (ILL). UCLA provides its primary users with subsidized (free) interlibrary borrowing from institutions throughout the world. The holdings of all ten UC libraries appear in UC Library Search (https: //search.library.ucla.edu/discovery/search?vid=01UCS_LAL:UCLA&_ga=2.178457318.39837462.1648481853-36143592.1646068894), the online catalog of the UC campuses, and faculty and students seamlessly link to digital resources and the holdings of other libraries to request material from other campuses. In addition, the Latin American librarian, through active collaboration and professional networking, assists UCLA users to locate and request materials not held at UCLA.
The UCLA Library has the most comprehensive Latin American collection in Southern California and serves as a regional, state and national resource in a number of subject areas. Scholars in the region make heavy use of the library collection both on site and through interlibrary loan. UCLA is a major lender, filling thousands of interlibrary loan requests from outside libraries every year.
The Library is also a member of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) (https: //www.crl.edu) and the Latin American Microform Project (LAMP), a preservation program that funds the acquisition and microfilming of important archives, newspapers, journals and other research material from or about Latin America. UCLA is also a member of the Latin Americanist Research Resources Project (LARRP), a consortium of 55 major North American and Latin American research libraries that seeks to develop a distributed system of collections to provide greater access to Latin American scholarly resources.
INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS
The UCLA Library has entered into numerous international partnerships through two grant-funded collaborative projects: the International Digital Ephemera Project (IDEP) (https: //idep.library.ucla.edu) and the Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP) (https: //www.library.ucla.edu/partnerships/modern-endangered-archives-program). IDEP projects in the Caribbean include partnerships with several Cuban cultural heritage institutions including the Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba José Marti, the Instituto de Historia de Cuba, and the Cinemateca de Cuba, which provide access to ephemera such as film posters and numerous periodicals titles, including El Figaro, Cuba y America, and Revista Social. Since 2019, MEAP has funded 8 projects in Latin America and the Caribbean to preserve and digitize endangered archives, including projects in Brazil, Argentina, Belize and Barbados.
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The opinions expressed in this blog post represent the views of the author and not of the UCLA Latin American Institute.