PUL honors Hispanic Heritage Month

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, Princeton University Library (PUL) highlights the following e-resources, research guides and library news items that speak to the contributions of Hispanic leaders and communities. 

Selected books from the Marquand Art Library collection; Marquand Library’s physical collections are currently available only by advanced request via the library catalog for consultation in two temporary reading rooms in Firestone Library, C Floor.

Did you know? According to a recent article published in College & Research Libraries, “Princeton University Library (PUL) ranks as the third academic library in the U.S. for holdings in Latin American Indigenous languages, behind Tulane University and the University of Texas. 

PUL leads the Ivy League with over 850 items in languages such as Quechua, Nahuatl, Guaraní, Zapotec, Maya, Mapudungun, and Aymara. The collections include books, periodicals, manuscripts, and ephemera, many of which exist in no other library in the world.” more

Latin American Ephemera: Digitized Microfilm sets

An early and vast subset of PUL's renowned Latin American Ephemera Collection that until recently was only accessible in microfilm or in Special Collections is now digitally available on the Digital PUL site.

Puerto Rican Graphic Arts Donation

Political caricature denouncing the secret surveillance and repression against independentistas, critics, and leftist intellectuals at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras. Cámaras, Agencias Privadas de Detectives – Alambradas – fuera independentistas…, 1971, by Lorenzo Homar.

Six pieces by graphic artists Luis Alonso, Lorenzo Homar, Antonio Martorell and Rafael Tufiño were recently donated to the Graphic Arts Collection by Alma Concepción and Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones. Among the items is this political caricature denouncing the secret surveillance and repression against independentistas, critics, and leftist intellectuals at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras.

Latin America Collections

Librarian for Latin American Studies, Latino Studies, and Iberian Peninsular Studies Fernando Acosta-Rodriguez started a new blog which will take closer looks at PUL’s Latin American Collection items. Recent posts cover the newly acquired Brazilian ephemera, the Alma Concepción collection, and the Jorge Díaz papers.

Latinx zines collection : Latinos in the U.S.

Latinos in the US (205 zines): This collection speaks to the experiences of Latino’s in the US, many of which were published under the presidency of Trump, a difficult time for Latino immigrants in the US

Arte Público Hispanic Historical Collection Database

Arte Público Hispanic Historical Collection is an archive of publications focused exclusively on U.S. Hispanic history, literature and culture from colonial times until 1960.

Princeton's Latin American Ephemera Collection

Postcard; Programa de la Lucha contra el VIH/SIDA e ITS - Secretaría de Asuntos Estudiantiles (SAE) - Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC); 2017-2018

The Latin American Ephemera Collection contains thousands of digitized pamphlets, brochures, flyers, posters, placards and other printed items created since the last quarter of the 20th century by a wide variety of social activists, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, political parties, public policy think tanks, and other types of organizations across Latin America, in order to publicize their views, positions, agendas, policies, events, and activities. The vast majority are rare, hard-to-find primary sources unavailable elsewhere.

PUL helps uncover international mystery of a 15th century Spanish-Latin dictionary 

One of the unidentified endleaf pages found in PUL’s ‘Vocabulario.’ Photo by Eric White.

Inside “Universal vocabulario en latín y en romance, vol. I” by Alfonso Fernández de Palencia were a pair of pages that didn’t quite fit. Scheide Librarian and Assistant University Librarian for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts Eric White worked with Dr. Cinthia María Hamlin, an Argentine philologist after her visit to Princeton in 2018 to help solve the mystery of a 15th century Spanish-Latin dictionary. The discovery has been deemed in the Spanish press as one that “changes the history of lexicography.”

Identifying Women in Latin American manuscripts

Dominga Ortiz Orzúa (1792-1875), wife of Venezuelan President José Antonio Páez

In fall 2020, PUL’s Inclusive Description Working Group sought to identify 82 unnamed women in the Latin America manuscripts collections, including María del Rosario Páez de Llamosas, the daughter of José Antonio Páez, former Venezuelan president and military leader who fought for Venezuela's independence from Spain, and Josefina Lozano, the mother of Octavio Paz (1914-1988), a renowned Mexican poet.

Virtually teaching the works of Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz — the most celebrated female, Spanish-language writer of the 17th century

Sor Juana's 'Tomo Primero,' originally published as 'Inundación castálida' in Madrid in 1689, donated by Edgar Legaspi, P'18.

Nicole Legnani, assistant professor of Spanish & Portuguese knew her graduate seminar on colonial Spanish literature and the works of Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz might not be possible if students could not physically visit PUL’s Special Collections to examine its rare and exquisite 17th-century editions of the writer’s works. She worked closely with Special Collections staff to digitize course-related materials including 16 early-printed books and several manuscript items so she could teach her class virtually.

Acquisitions by the Graphic Arts Collection with assistance from the Program of Latin American Studies

"Borderbus," by Juan Felipe Herrera

Borderbus. Graphic Arts Collection. Princeton University Library.

Acquired by the Graphics Arts Collection with assistance from the Program in Latin American Studies, this limited edition artists’ book by Juan Felipe Herrera and Felicia Rice is a rendering of a singular long poem called “Borderbus” by Juan Felipe Herrera. The poem takes us to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bus where two women have been detained while trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, and are being transported to a detention center. 
 

Cinco Grabados, Leonora Carrington (limited edition portfolio)

Cinco Grabados, Leonora Carrington (limited edition portfolio: copy 3 of 30); Graphic Arts Collection, Princeton University Library.

A limited edition portfolio, Leonora Carrington, Cinco Grabados, copy 3 of 30, acquired by the Graphic Arts Collection, was purchased in part with funds provided by the Program in Latin American Studies. The portfolio includes five engravings, with etching and aquatint, printed at Tiempo Extra Editores, and a single poetry broadside signed by Carrington (1917-2011).
 

Ivy Plus: Latin American web art archive

The Latin American and Caribbean Contemporary Art Web Archive is a collection developed by the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation's Art & Architecture Librarians, and is an extension of an existing effort focused on collecting publications in all formats that document contemporary art and artists of Latin America and the Caribbean. 

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Compiled by the Office of Library Communications

Media contact: Barbara Valenza, Director of Library Communications

Published September 15, 2022
Updated September 12, 2023