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Argentina: Hispanic Reading Room Country Guide

Digital Collections and Services

The Library of Congress has over 20 centers that provide research space and guidance for users to interact with collection items based on subject or format. The Hispanic Reading Room curates materials from 61 countries and/or regions in 26 different languages and in varying formats such as books, maps, photographs, manuscripts, and digital objects. The Hispanic Reading Room staff provides access to materials from the General Collections and helps point researchers to relevant items in other reading rooms. Selected digitized primary source materials from the Library’s collections are highlighted below along with links for further exploration.

Folklife, Ethnographic Materials

Alan Lomax Collection, Manuscripts, Performance style, Choreometrics, sources, Correspondence and notes by culture, Argentina. 1962-1985. Library of Congress American Folklife Center.

The Library's American Folklife Center houses one of the largest archives of ethnographic materials from the United States and around the world, which include extensive audiovisual documentation of traditional arts, cultural expressions, and oral histories offering researchers access to the songs, stories, and other creative expressions of people from diverse communities.

Jules Daufresne, artist. Parada en el Campo. [1841?]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Prints, Photographs, Visual Materials

The Library's Prints and Photographs Division is the repository for a rich collection of prints, photographs, and other visual materials on and about Argentina from significant artists and photographers. Many of these items have been digitized and are available to researchers online. Many other visual materials are available to researchers in the Library's Prints and Photographs Reading Room.

The Capitol, Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America. 1913. Stereographs Cards Collection. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Royal Order of February 2, 1778 extending the right of free trade as provided under Royal Decree of October 16, 1765 to the Province of Buenos Aires, to the provinces of South America and to the sea ports of Chile and Perú. [1778]. Library of Congress Law Library.

Law, Legal Materials

The Law Library of Congress includes a vast collection on foreign legal materials, such as Constitutions, Codes, Session laws, Commentaries and indexes to laws, rules and regulations, Judicial court decisions and reports, and Legal bibliographies.

Access to legal materials related to Argentina are provided by the Law Library, including:

Women's suffrage movement correspondence. Consejo Nacional de Mujeres de la República de Argentina. [1890-1947]. Carrie Chapman Catt Papers. Library of Congress Manuscript Division.

Manuscripts, Archival Materials

The Manuscript Division holds approximately sixty million items in eleven thousand separate collections, including some of the greatest manuscript treasures of American history and culture and support scholarly research in many aspects of political, cultural, and scientific history. The Library's Manuscript Reading Room provides access to archival materials on and about Argentina, including primary sources from cultural figures, authors, and politicians.

Finding Aids

Finding aids describe manuscript collections significant in researching manuscript collections. Finding aids can be particularly useful when assessing the full contents of a manuscript collection.

Selected Finding Aids: Argentina

Atlas mexicano. Maps dated 1884 to 1886.
Carlos de Chapeaurouge, cartographer. Atlas del plano catastral de la República Argentina. 1901. Library of Congress Geography and Map Division.

Cartographic Materials

The Library's Geography and Map Division has custody of the largest and most comprehensive cartographic collection in the world with collections numbering over 5 million maps, 100,000 atlases, 8,000 reference works, over 5000 globes and globe gores, 3,000 raised relief models, over 130,000 microfiche/film, and a large number of cartographic materials in other formats. Many of these materials have been digitized and are available online. Materials that have not been digitized are available from the Geography and Map Reading Room.

Film, Video, Television

The Library's Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division holds one of the largest collections of motion pictures in the world, spanning the entire history of cinema. Access to these collection items, if not digitized, research assistance is available through the Moving Image Research Center.

Performing Arts

The Performing Arts Reading Room (part of the Library's Music Division) provides access to classified music and book collections, music and literary manuscripts, iconography, microforms, periodicals, musical instruments, published and unpublished copyright deposits, and close to 500 special collections in music, theater, and dance.

To hear recordings or interact with audio materials in the Library's collections visit the Recorded Sound Research Center which is part of the Library's Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.

Featured Webcast

The following webcast is an example of one of the many Music Division-sponsored events at the Library of Congress.

On February 29, 2008, Argentine pianist and composer Guillermo Klein talked with Library's former music specialist Larry Appelbaum. In the early 1990s, Guillermo Klein moved from his native Argentina to Boston to study at the Berklee School of Music. He spent the remainder of that decade in New York leading his innovative big band, as well as his celebrated smaller group Los Guachos. Known for his highly original stylistic approach, Klein has garnered much critical acclaim for his rare concert appearances and the handful of recordings documenting his music.

Hendrick Ottsen. Journal or daily register of the voyage to Rio de Plata, done with the ship named Silveren Werelt, which under the command of Captain Laurens Bicker, and the direction of the financial officer Cornelis van Heems-kerck. 1617. Pre-1801 Imprint Collection. Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

Rare Books, Special Collections

Rare materials about and from Argentina in the Library of Congress collections are vast and filled with treasures. Researchers should visit the the Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room to learn more about rare materials available online as well as special collections that contain significant resources on Argentina.