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To better understand the needs of researchers, the Latin American, Caribbean and European division at the Library of Congress wants to know how our users find online resources created in the Hispanic Reading Room. This survey includes five quick questions. It should only take about 4 minutes and all responses are anonymous. Please take a moment to respond to our survey, here. Thank you for sharing your feedback with us!
Staff in the Hispanic Reading Room help researchers find materials on and from the Caribbean, Latin America, Spain and Portugal; the indigenous cultures of those areas; and persons with Portuguese or Spanish heritage in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas—including U.S. Latinos. We provide materials held in the General Collections for anyone with a Reader Identification Card and we assist in finding resources in other divisions of the Library.
The Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS) is a selective bibliography annotated by professors of anthropology (archeology and ethnology), art, geography, government and politics, history, international relations, literature, music, philosophy, political economy, and sociology; and edited by librarians in the Hispanic Reading Room at the Library of Congress. It simplifies scholarly research on Latin America by identifying scholarly books, journal articles, conference proceedings and papers, book chapters, maps and atlases, and electronic resources (blogs, websites, online videos, etc.).
The PALABRA Archive is a collection of audio recordings from Spanish, Portuguese, Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx poets and prose writers reading from their works. It includes major 20th century writers like: Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Miguel Angel Asturias, Gabriel García Márquez, Octavio Paz, Zee Edgell, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Elena Poniatowska, Jorge Amado, and Nélida Piñón; as well as contemporary writers like José Luiz Passos, Carmen Boullosa, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Laurie Ann Guerrero, and Julia Alvarez.
La Biblioteca is series of podcasts from the Hispanic Reading Room exploring of the collections of the Library of Congress that focus on the cultures of Spain, Portugal, Latin America, and the Hispanic community in the United States. Listen to a sample podcast below.
The Hispanic Reading Room sponsors a wide range of public programs, research orientations, and literary events throughout the year.
Since 1936, HLAS has made scholarly research on Latin America more easily accessible by working with researchers to identify and describe books, journal articles, conference proceedings and papers, book chapters, maps and atlases, and electronic resources
This guide provides access to the PALABRA Archive, a collection of audio recordings of poets and writers from Latin America, the Iberian Peninsula, the Caribbean, and from other regions with Luso-Hispanic heritage reading from their works.
This research guide answers a recent call to action in Haitian studies to engage historical sources in centering Haitian cultural and historical contributions to Black liberation movements in the United States and Latin America.
This guide provides access to an array of resources on language and identity in Puerto Rico, including digitized primary source materials in a wide variety of formats, books, periodicals, and online databases.
Una guía para facilitar el acceso al Archivo de la Palabra de la Biblioteca de Congreso.
This guide provides curated Library of Congress resources for researching LatinX Studies, including digitized primary source materials in a wide variety of formats, books and periodicals, online databases, and research strategies.
This research guide provides access to historic photographic and film documentation, as well as related print and electronic resources, illustrating the 20th century efforts to transform Puerto Rico from a plantation to an industrial economy.
This guide explores the work of artists, curators, and collectives on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, focusing on artistic interventions that activate the border itself and make and/or unmake anew what we traditionally consider a “piece” of art.
Borders can be mapped as palimpsests both geographically and linguistically, or as areas that shift ecologically and ideologically. In this guide, explore the histories, belief systems, and landscapes that characterize the U.S.- Mexico border.
