Library Report

After an 18-month hiatus, Stanford’s curator for Latin American, Mexican American & Iberian Collections, Adán Griego, returned to campus on September 13, 2021, ready to engage a group of scholars eager to consult the libraries’ vast Latin American collections, not to mention future users from the incoming class of 2025.

During the pandemic months, the libraries continued to receive research materials from the region. Likewise, as the region’s economies began reopening, publishing output also showed signs of renewed activity. Although scholarly publishing is a predominantly print-based industry, the months of confinement have shifted reading habits toward digital copies. It is likely that the industry will also move toward e-books, a trend that has started to be reflected in the libraries’ acquisition of online copies in Spanish and Portuguese over the last two years: 1600 and 335, respectively.

Inadditiontoe-books,thelibrariesaddedtheCubanPeriodicals: CulturalMagazinesdatabase,providingaccesstopublications fromtherenownedCasadelasAméricasorganizationforthe years1960-2009,whichincludethetheaterjournalConjunto,the musicjournalBoletíndeMúsica,AnalesdelCaribe,andCasade lasAméricas.Therearenowover70databaseswithscholarly contentfromandaboutLatinAmericaavailabletoStanford users.

GriegowasalsoabletoattendbookfairsinGuadalajara (November2021)andBogota(April2022).Hemetwiththe libraries’onsitevendors,makinganextensiverecorridothrough theexhibithallstofinditemsthatdefycommercialdistribution channelsandareonlyavailableatbookevents.

Duringthespringsemester,thelibrarieshadaspecialized presence(virtualandin-person)withGriegoasanembedded librarianforthewritingseminarcourseclassfortheLatin AmericanStudiesMaster’sprogram.Thestudents’finalprojects arenowarchivedintheStanfordDigitalRepositoryandare availabletobothinternalandexternalusers.