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Collections Overviews - Area Studies

Luso-Hispanic Studies

Scope

This overview of the Library's collections deals with materials published in or about the countries of the Iberian Peninsula, Latin America, and the Caribbean and other areas where Spanish and Portuguese influences have been significant, such as the Spanish Philippines, the Mariana Islands, Portuguese Asia and Spanish and Portuguese Africa. We excluded from this essay works dealing with Hispanics in the United States and the history of the Spanish Borderlands which is the subject of another overview.

Size

Materials relating to the Luso-Hispanic and Caribbean areas can be found throughout the Library. We estimate the size of the collections surpassing two million books and periodicals and approximately 10.5 million items. The Library's Luso-Hispanic and Caribbean collection, in many languages, is, without doubt, the largest and most complete in the world. These collections include, in addition to books and serials, rare books, newspapers, manuscripts, maps, photographs, fine prints, posters, feature and documentary films, newsreels, viedotapes television programs, recordings, and sheet music. The establishment of the Hispanic Division is 1939, whose first director, Lewis Hanke, brought to the Library the annual, annotated bibliography The Handbook of Latin American Studies (which is prepared with the cooperation of 120 scholarly contributing editors), ensured that the Division staff would develop the collections in a systematic manner in response to demands in the growing field of Luso-Hispanic studies.

Selected Statistics

The Library has approximately 250,000 titles dealing with Spain, its regions and its autonomies Of these more than 4,000 are serial titles. We also have 200 current and retrospective newspapers from Spain and its regions.

The Brazilian book and periodical holdings number approximately 150,000 titles. The establishment of the Library's Field Office in Rio de Janeiro in 1966 immensely enriched acquisitions from that Afro-Latin country.

The well balanced and rich Mexican collections surpass 86,000 titles, with special strength in official publications and legal materials.

The Argentine classified collections include approximately 54,000 titles.

Cuban materials in the classified collections exceed 15,000 items.

General Research Strengths

The Library houses unsurpassed Luso-Hispanic collections of official gazettes, debates of parliamentary bodies, and all other significant official publications of national agencies, as well as selected state or provincial imprints. A great many of these official publications are not available in the countries themselves owing to wars and revolutions.

The Law Library has collected the most complete Iberian and Latin American collection in the world, ranging from items such as a thirteenth century edition of the Fuero Juzgo of Spanish Visigothic law to contemporary laws, statutes, and legislation of each country. For the past twenty years relevant legislation has been computerized by the Hispanic Law Division.

Supported by the Library's Field Office in Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian collection of books, periodicals, newspapers, and ephemera is outstanding and extensice. Of special interest is the ongoing collection of materials by and about Brazilian Popular Groups, collected by the Rio Field Office. This is an extensive collection of materials that document political, social, and religious movements in contemporary Brazil.

The collections for Luso-Hispanic history, politics, society, and religion are quite comprehensive ranging from the earliest Iberian, Celtic and Roman periods and the pre-Columbian era in Latin America to the present. The literary collections in the areas under consideration are probably the world's most comprehensive resource for comparative literary studies. All literary forms major and minor are represented, from medieval poetry to Spanish drama of the golden age and modern Spanish plays.

The collection of accounts by foreign travelers to the Luso-Hispanic geographic areas is notable. The Library has a rich and well balanced collection of maps and atlases dealing with Luso-Hispanic countries. It includes single maps, series maps, aerial maps and atlases.

Areas of Distinction

The Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape, begun in 1942, includes voice recordings of selections of the writings of contemporary Luso-Hispanic poets and prose writers, including seven Nobel laureates (among them Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Octavio Paz and Gabriela Mistral). It also includes recordings in indigenous languages.

The Law Library's rare book collection of 1,700 volumes includes several early editions of the Spanish law code the Siete Partidas as well as an original copy of the 1563 Mexican Cedulario de Puga, believed to be the first law book published in the Americas.

The Rare Books and Special Collections Division has a large number of Latin American travel accounts, rare government decrees, military documents, literary works, early periodicals, the Spanish books in the Jefferson collection. Here are the first edition of Don Quixote, and two of the earliest books printed in South America: a catechism in Spanish and in two Indian languages and the earliest Spanish-Quechua vocabulary. Among the Spanish incunabula are Fernan Mexia's book of noble families (1492), Lucena's treatise on fencing (1496) and the Sneyd Codex which is the first Venetian report of Spain's forays into the New World.

Manuscripts:

Two Edward Stephen Harkness Collections (Mexico & Peru).
The Hans P. Kraus Collection on the exploration of the Americas.
The Hans P. Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake.
Portuguese Manuscript Collection which spans some 500 years.
Micrforms and transcripts numbering hundreds of thousands of pages copied from Spanish and Latin American archives.
The personal and professional papers of Nobel laureate Gabriela Mistral. Jos Ignacio Rodriguez collection relating to Cuba.
The Ephraim George Squier Collection.
Rudolph Schuller Collection of ethnography and indigenous languages.
The Portuguese Manuscript Collection spanning 500 years.
Henry P. Monday Collection of Mexican manuscripts.
The West Indian Manuscript collection The Vernon-Wager collection of naval operations in the Caribbean.
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna Papers.
The Domingo Delmonte Collection. The Spanish Philippines Collection.
The Spanish Mariana Islands Collection.

The Archive of Hispanic Culture, a photographic reference collection in the Prints and Photographs Division.

Extensive rare and general holdings of vocabularies, grammars and catechisms in indigenous languages of Latin America.

Maps:

Spanish and Portuguese portolan charts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Americas.
Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection of maps of the Americas.
Henry Harisse Collections of Manuscript maps. The Oztoticpac Land map (Mexico) of 1540 is a rare treasure.

Weaknesses/Exclusions

The Library lacks documentary photographs of political and cultural figures from the Luso-Hispanic area. Because the Library no longer collects original foreign manuscripts it has very few original materials from the Luso-Hispanic areas for the twentieth century.

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