Curated by Paul Bary
Summer 2002
The Latin American Library acquires its collections of books, microfilms and other materials from a large number of publishers and dealers located throughout Latin America, North America, Europe and other parts of the world. On a periodic basis, the publishers and dealers issue catalogues of the publications they have for sale, and this exhibit represents a sample of the most colorful and artistic catalogues that have been collected at Tulane over the last decade. The exhibit is arranged in four sections:
Rare Book dealer catalogues
This section highlights the catalogues of North American rare book dealers who specialize in collecting Latin American imprints, in particular the William Reese Company of New Haven, Connecticut, and the Philadelphia Rare Books and Manuscripts Company, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. These two dealers specialize in publications from and about the early history of the Americas.
European rare book dealers represented in the exhibit include Hesperia of Zaragoza, Spain; Puvill Libros and Llibreria Antiquaria Delstre's of Barcelona, Spain; and Richard C. Ramer of New York City, a dealer specializing in publications from Portugal and Portuguese America. These dealers regularly collect books of great historical and literary value such as early accounts of the discovery of the Americas, and the first editions of important Latin American authors.
North American and European publisher and dealer catalogues
This section features North American suppliers of Latin American library materials, as represented in the catalogues of Libros Sur of Ithaca, New York, a vendor of Argentine books to academic libraries; and Libros Latinos of Redlands, California, a supplier of current and out-of-print publications from a large number of Latin American countries.
Other catalogues represent the offerings of North American academic publishers including Primary Source Microfilm, a vendor of important microfilm sets; the University of California Press, one of the most important university presses active in publishing books about Latin America; Arte Público Press, a Houston, Texas publisher specializing in U.S. latino culture, literature and art; Curbstone Press, a literary publisher located in Willimantic, Connecticut; and Lynne Rienner Publishers of Boulder, Colorado, specializing in academic publications in the humanities and social sciences.
Mexican, Central American and Caribbean publisher and dealer catalogues
The Latin American Library acquires current and retrospective Latin American publications through a series of book approval plans with the dealers in each country. In addition, the bibliographers search publisher and dealer catalogues in order to identify the important books that were not supplied on any of the approval plans. The catalogues in this section of the exhibit include publisher catalogues of the Instituto Cubano del Libro, University of the West Indies Press, Artes de México, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and the Fondo de Cultura Económica in Mexico; and dealer catalogues of Luis Retta Libros, a dealer from Montevideo, Uruguay, who specializes in acquiring books from Cuba as well as publications from Uruguay and Paraguay.
South American dealer catalogues
These catalogues represent book dealers with whom Tulane has maintained long and successful business relationships: Librería García Cambeiro of Buenos Aires; Librería Linardi y Risso of Montevideo; and Susan Bach Books of Rio de Janeiro. In more than one case, these businesses were founded as small bookshops that later grew and today specialize in providing North American libraries with current and recent publications from their respective countries.
