Archives and Special Collections holds internationally-significant collections of rare books, personal papers and periodicals from Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain.
The Latin American Newspapers collection includes approximately 2000 titles of the Latin American and Caribbean newspapers. The collection is strongest for the late nineteenth century and contains newspapers from virtually every country of Latin America and the Caribbean. The most notable portion of the collection is represented by newspapers from Bolivia and Peru. Twenty-nine cities of Bolivia are represented with major holdings from the cities of La Paz and Cochabamba. The Spanish Periodical and Newspapers collection is another specialized research collection. Collected by the late Duque de T’Serclaes, the collection spans three centuries. The bulk of the materials cover the years 1800-1840 and include a wide variety of topics about Spain and Latin America.
Of particular interest are approximately 300 Mexican broadsides consisting mainly of governmental decrees, proclamations, and circulars from the first half of the nineteenth century. This collection includes documents on such subjects as the economy, farming, elections, and military and ecclesiastical communications. Also included is a manuscript hacienda account book of the Marquesa de Apartado from 1850.
Additional collections include:
Arjona Collection: Jaime Homero Arjona, a former chair of the Spanish Section in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, donated his extensive collection of 1st editions and other rare books of novels and plays from Spanish writers such as Lope de Vega and Calderon de la Barca. Digitized items related to Spanish playwright and poet Lope de Vega can be found in the CTDA repository.
Medina Collection: José Toribio Medina was a Chilean bibliographer, writer, and historian. The materials in the Medina Collection include books that were written by him as well as books about his work on the printing history of many Latin American countries including Chile.
Chile Collection: Approximately 2700 volumes that reflect the history and politics of Chile from the 16th century through 1940 with particular strength in the period from 1810 to 1940. The nucleus of the holdings was formed by Chilean scholar Jose Promis of Santiago, Chile.
NACLA: The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) Archive of Latin Americana brings together publications from and about Latin America. In response to the April 1965 U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic, NACLA was founded in October and November of 1966 in a series of meetings of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the University Christian Movement, and returned Peace Corps volunteers, along with assorted other individuals and organizations. The collection includes primary sources as well as research institutes' working papers and other similar types of scholarship.
Puerto Rican Collection: Formerly known as the Géigel Family Collection or Géigel Collection, the Puerto Rican Collection was created and maintained by the Géigel Family over three generations. The collection was started by José (Pepe) Géigel Zenón, who was a reporter and well known Puerto Rican intellectual, a relative of the writer Manuel Zenón Gandía, and a personal friend of the writer Alejandro Tapia y Rivera. His son Fernando Géigel and granddaughter Luisa Géigel continued to build the collection. UConn acquired the Puerto Rican collection in the 1980s from Luisa Géigel with the help of historian Francisco Scarano who worked at the university at the time. Selections of the collection have been digitized, including Luisa Gégel's handwritten index of the books.
Related materials:
- Latin American and Caribbean Studies collections in the University of Connecticut Library
- Digitized books and journals in the Puerto Rican Collection available in the UConn Library digital repository