Latin American Archives and Library Resources at CU-Boulder
The University Libraries includes more than 3.5 million volumes, 30,000 serials, nearly 7 million microforms and 1 million government documents. CU Boulder ranks 30th out of 115 libraries in number of volumes.
CU’s Latin American and Caribbean Collection consists of roughly 93,000 volumes. Spanish language resources total 85387 volumes and there are 8322 volumes in Portuguese. The collection incorporated several personal libraries in the early 1990s, including the German Vargas collection of Caribbean and Latin American literature and the Gullón collection, which was mostly from Spain but included first editions from Neruda, Paz and García Marquez. There have been no large Latin American purchases since then. The Spanish and Portuguese collections also comprise other research resources, including 4 specific databases and over 200 serials. Further holdings consist of significant collections of United Nations, IADB (Inter-American Development Bank) and ECLAC (Economic Council Latin American Studies) documents. The majority of these are only cataloged since 1993. The Archives hold 4 major Latin American archival collections, mostly of human rights documents from El Salvador and Guatemala.
The Spanish and Portuguese budget of $41,000 ranks 16th out of 20 reporting libraries who are members of the Seminar for the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials. The budget includes titles for Spain and Portugal as well as Latin America. Some Latin American collection development occurs in Political Science, Art and History; other purchases in subject areas are faculty driven.
Alison Hicks is the Library’s full time Spanish and Portuguese librarian and coordinates the acquisition of additional library materials. There are several catalogers with Spanish language expertise.
Library Holdings
Institution | Volumes | % difference |
Colorado, Boulder | 3,928,431 | |
Kansas | 4,400,000 | -11% |
North Carolina | 7,601,548 | -64% |
Arizona | 6,019,631 | -42% |
University of Colorado, Boulder Library: Spanish and Portuguese Holdings
Number of volumes | % of total of CU Libraries | |
Spanish Books | 85387 | 2.17% |
Portuguese Books | 8322 | 0.21% |
Spanish and Portuguese Serials | 7950 | 3.20% |
Holdings by country (excludes books published in US, UK, Spain)
Country | Number of volumes | % of total of CU Libraries | % of total of Span/Por books |
Argentina | 9067 | 0.231% | 10.579% |
Brazil (Portuguese) | 5152 | 0.131% | 6.011% |
Bolivia | 344 | 0.009% | 0.401% |
Chile | 2163 | 0.055% | 2.524% |
Colombia | 3490 | 0.089% | 4.072% |
Cuba | 1762 | 0.045% | 2.056% |
Dom. Rep. | 480 | 0.012% | 0.560% |
Ecuador | 395 | 0.010% | 0.461% |
Guatemala | 244 | 0.006% | 0.285% |
Honduras | 129 | 0.003% | 0.151% |
Mexico | 13064 | 0.333% | 15.242% |
Nicaragua | 364 | 0.009% | 0.425% |
Paraguay | 231 | 0.006% | 0.270% |
Peru | 1127 | 0.029% | 1.315% |
Puerto Rico | 1093 | 0.028% | 1.275% |
Uruguay | 1094 | 0.028% | 1.276% |
Venezuela | 1830 | 0.047% | 2.135% |
Material Allocations and Expenditures
Institution | Latin American Allocations $ | % difference |
Colorado, Boulder | 30,000 | – |
New Mexico | 264,850 | -159% |
North Carolina | 123,611 | -121% |
Univ. Minnesota | 88,823 | -99% |
Major Electronic Resources
Chicano database
Hapi: Hispanic American periodicals index
Latin American Newspapers (CRL- 19th/20th Century)
Latin American Regional News: Brazil and Southern Cone
LAPOP – Latin American Public Opinion Project
World News Connections
Literature
Purchased between 1988-1991
Ricardo Gullón Collection: 20,000 volumes, mostly from Spain but includes first editions from
Neruda, Paz, Garcia Marquez
Germán Vargas Collection: Caribbean and Latin American Literature
Government Publications
UN Economic Commission of Latin America (CEPAL/ECLAC).
IADB publications
UN depository materials (not catalogued before 1993 but accessible via indexes)
Comisión De Derechos Humanos De El Salvador
18 linear feet, 1974-1992
Case files in Spanish documenting killings, extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture, and other human rights abuses in El Salvador 1974-1992. The case files contain biographical information about the victim including the date and place of the event, who is held responsible, and a description of the circumstances surrounding the report.
Guide available in Archives.
Oficina De Tutela Legal Del Arzobispado, San Salvador
7.5 linear feet, 1975-1993
Case files in Spanish documenting killings, extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture, and other human rights abuses in El Salvador 1975-1993. The case files contain information about the victim including the date and place of the event, who is held responsible, and a detailed description of the circumstances surrounding the report.
Guide available in Archives.
Socorro Jurídico Arzobispado San Salvador
15 linear feet, 1977-1987
Case files in Spanish documenting killings, extrajudicial executions, disappearances, and other human rights abuses in El Salvador 1977-1887. The case files contain biographical information about the victim, including the date and place of the event, who is held responsible, and a description of the circumstances surrounding the report. Reports and publications in Spanish also document the human rights situation in El Salvador.
Guide available in Archives.
National Security Archives
50 linear feet, 1980s
The collection consists of photocopies of Spanish language records regarding El Salvador human rights abuses in the 1980s. The materials were sent to the National Security Archives and subsequently donated to the University of Colorado.
Collection is unprocessed.
Guatemala Human Rights Commission
Organizational Records, 10.5 linear feet, 1992-1999 The Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC) Papers consist of newspaper articles from Guatemalan newspapers, indexes of information and news briefs used to write the Update published by the GHRC. Also included are copies of these updates, published by the Commission on the subject of human rights issues in Guatemala.
Guide available in Archives
Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom Organizational records of the International Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland
1915 to present, 155 linear feet.
Contains the records, correspondence, minutes, publications, and constitutions of the International Office of Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom, including topic files and correspondence with National Offices. The collection contains material concerning the world-wide peace movement, the refugee question, prisoners of war, and human rights.
Guide available in Archives.
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 2nd Accession Organizational records of the International Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland
1915 –1990 , 86 Linear feet
Records documenting the activities of an international women’s peace organization. Established in 1915, in The Hague, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) was created to achieve world disarmament, full rights for women, racial and economic justice, an end to all forms of violence through peaceful means. WILPF’s goal was, and still is, to establish those political, social, and psychological conditions which can assure peace, freedom, and justice for all. This Archival collection is the Second Accession to the WILPF Collection. It contains correspondence, Executive Committee meeting minutes, headquarters papers, Triennial Congress logistical and informational documents, circular letters and newsletters, official WILPF resolutions, case files, section files, country files, topical research materials, United Nations documentation, seminar and symposium papers, as well as a variety of non-WILPF and WILPF peace-related publications.
Guide available in Archives.
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Swarthmore College Accession Organizational records of the International Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland found in the Swarthmore College Peace Collections and shipped to the Archives
1915 –1990, Contains the records, correspondence, minutes, publications, and constitutions of the International Office of Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom, including topic files and correspondence with National Offices. The collection contains material concerning the world-wide peace movement, the refugee question, prisoners of war, and human rights.
Guide available in Archives.
Chilean Exile Archive Project
In 2013, CU signed an agreement to acquire digital copies of the Chilean Exile Archive. The archive will consist of a collection of writings and correspondence composed by Chilean exiles and their descendants who have resided in North America as a result of the Pinochet dictatorship. Work is ongoing.
CU CISPES (U.S. Community in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador)
18 linear feet, 1980-1988. The CU CISPES Collection contains the papers of the University of Colorado chapter of CISPES that operated on campus between 1980 and 1988. Founded by conventions in Los Angeles and Washington, DC in October of 1980, CISPES grew into a national grassroots solidarity organization. This political organization was founded to oppose United States intervention in Central America, namely El Salvador. The goals of the organization included: “to end all forms of U.S. intervention in El Salvador and all of Central America and the Caribbean,” as well as “to provide direct support for the Salvadoran people through: material aid, and political support for the FMLN-FDR,” and “to support the people and revolutionary movements of Guatemala and Nicaragua,” as passed unanimously at the January 1984 National Coordinators Conference. Guide available in Archives.
La Prensa Managua, Nicaragua.
A collection of La Prensa Newspapers from 1981-1982 and 1987-1991, comprising 7 boxes.
Rio Abiseo Project
15 linear feet, 1985-1992. The Rio Abiseo National Park Research Project (RANPRP) was a 7 year research effort in tropical forest resources by CU and cooperating universities and organizations in Peru which began in 1985 and concluded in 1992. Investigators produced a body of monographs and reports in disciplines ranging from archaeology and ethno history, to botany and biogeography,geology and paleontology, to zoology. The project also traced and compiled historical documents of the area, the originals of which are dispersed in archives on three continents. The collection includes field notes, material on fundraising and corporate sponsorship, correspondence, field season records, maps, charts, media files, and reports and documents. Preliminary inventory available in Archives.
Brown, William Carey
Military and personal papers of General William Carey Brown, 1870s-1930s, 81 linear feet/ 1 reel microfilm/ 300 maps. William Carey Brown (1854-1939) graduated from West Point, served in the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, the Mexican Punitive Expedition, and World War I. After his retirement in 1918, he devoted his energies to collection material on the Indian Wars. The collection documents Brown’s career and contains information he collected, including correspondence files, diaries, maps, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, articles and publications. Published guide available in Archives.
Dakan, Albert
5 portfolios, 1925-1929, 3 linear feet. The Dakan Collection contains a four year run (1925-1929) of the French journal, JOURNAL DES FABRICANTS DE SUCRE (Journal of the Sugar Manufacturers). Journal was noted for its unbiased international review of the sugar industry. Although written mainly in French, each issue has 1 to 2 pages in English and a half page in Spanish. The issues contain articles on the Colorado sugar beet industry and on U.S. sugar policies. Guide in Archives.
Haynes, Harry N.
Personal and business papers, 1865-1935, 5 linear feet/7 volumes. Born in Wisconsin, Harry Haynes(1855-1936) was admitted to the Colorado Bar in 1879 and practice in Fort Collins, later moving to Greeley in irrigation law, served as counsel for the Great Western Sugar Company, and he maintained a large probate practice. He was a director of The Monte Cristo Rubber Plantation Company of Chiapas, Mexico. The collection contains letters business records, legal case files, mining information, rubber plantation company papers, photographs, family papers and material on Weld County history. Guide in Archives.
Stanton, Timothy W.
Author’s manuscript, 1940, Author’s Mss. Typed copy of original manuscript,”Eighty Years of Joy and Gladness Mingled with Some Work and Sadness.” Stanton was a CU graduate, class of 1883. He conducted geological expeditions to many parts of North America, including Mexico. He later became the Chief Geologist of the US Geological Survey. No guide.
Terpena, Beth
1 scrapbook, 1800s-1910s. Scrapbook containing newspaper clippings about various 19th/20th century topics: the silver question; John Paul Jones; Colorado in World War I; Colorado regiments on the Mexican border; Russo-Japanese War; Spanish-American War; Cuba; Henry M. Teller; mining in Colorado; Boulder, Colorado; Denver maps, 1885 and 1906. No guide.
The Resource Center for the Americas
Humanitas International Human Rights Committee