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Read more about the Library's international collections on the 4 Corners of the World: International Collections Blog. Follow us on our Four Corners Facebook Page External. These platforms will provide information on new collection acquisitions, little-known items, Library treasures, digital initiatives, and upcoming events.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 Division 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.
The American Folklife Center was created to "preserve and present American folklife" through programs of research, documentation, archival preservation, reference service, live performance, exhibitions, publications, and training. Nowadays, the American Folklife Center is one of the largest archives of ethnographic materials from the United States and around the world, encompassing millions of items of ethnographic and historical documentation recorded from the nineteenth century to the present. These collections, which include extensive audiovisual documentation of traditional arts, cultural expressions, and oral histories, offer researchers access to the songs, stories, and other creative expressions of people from diverse communities.
The Library's Prints and Photographs Division is the repository for a rich collection of prints, photographs, and other visual materials on and about Chile 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 images shown here are representative of the prints and photographs you may find through your searches.
The Law Library 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, just to provide a few examples on the scope of these collections.
Access to legal items is provided in the Law Library Reading Room.
The Library has papers and archival materials related to Chile. Among the items in the Manuscript Division related to Chile are logbooks from early transoceanic voyages. Before the construction of the Panama Canal, voyages between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans had to make the treacherous journey around Cape Horn or through the Strait of Magellan at the southern tip of Chile. During the 19th century, this was the route taken by the speedy clipper ships that transported much of the world's cargo from port to port. Logbooks and travellers' and captains' journals collected by the Library document these trips, providing glimpses of seafaring life as well as observations of marine and animal life, geography, and local customs.
The Library also has the papers of diplomats stationed in Chile and politicians who visited the country, as well as copies of manuscripts from libraries and archives around the world.
Most manuscript materials are housed in the Manuscript Division, but other divisions of the Library also have manuscript collections. Some manuscript collections have been digitized. A larger number are described by online finding aids or by records in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.
The cartographic collection in the Geography and Map Division is the largest in the world and contains maps, atlases, digital data, and special collections. There are thousands of maps of Latin America in the collection. Some of these maps are described in The Luso-Hispanic World in Maps, an online guide to select manuscript maps (before 1900) in the Library of Congress. The maps document the expansion of the Spanish and Portuguese empires overseas.The Library also has many unique items, such as pilot's charts and globes, as well as contemporary cartographic materials from the 20th-21st centuries.
The Performing Arts Reading Room is the patron space for the Music Division. The Music Division traces its origins to the thirteen books on music literature and theory in Thomas Jefferson's library. Today the division's collections number close to 8 million items, including sheet music and book collections, music and literary manuscripts, microforms, periodicals, musical instruments, published and unpublished copyright deposits, and close to 500 special collections in music, theater, and dance.
Pro Tip: To listen to recordings or interact with audio materials in the Library's collections, visit the Recorded Sound Research Center, part of the Library's Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.
The books listed below are only a sampling of the many items related to Chile in the Music Division's collections.
El aporte de los negros a la identidad musical de Pica, Matilla y Tarapacá by Ópera en Chile : ciento ochenta y seis años de historia 1827-2013 by Thrash metal: del sonido al contenido: origen y gestación de una contracultura chilena by Víctor Jara: un canto no truncado by The Library's collections include current and historical newspapers in microform, print, and digital formats. Most newspapers are available in the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room. You can also read about historical events in Chile as reported in the US by searching in our historic newspaper collections.
Chronicling America is a searchable database of digitized US newspapers (1789-1963). You can find information reported on in American newspapers for events in Chile.
In addition, some current newspapers from Chile are available online:
The Rare Book and Special Collections Division traces its beginnings to Thomas Jefferson's wish to create a library for statesmen and for the people of the new nation covering the broad spectrum of human knowledge and interests. Today the division's collections amount to nearly 800,000 books, broadsides, pamphlets, theater playbills, title pages, prints, posters, photographs, and manuscripts.
Materials related to Chile in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division are numerous and varied. Among the items in the division's collections are a map (shown at right) of one of Francis Drake's voyages, a guide for immigrants to Chile from the US and Europe, and a 1938 Chilean cookbook.
The titles below link to bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links for additional online content are provided when available.
The Kraus Collection of Sir Francis DrakeBuenas recetas de cocina.A sketch of Chili, expressly prepared for the use of emigrants, from the United States and Europe to that country, with a map, and several papers relating to the present war between that country and Spain, and the position assumed by the United States the
