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INTERNET RESOURCES: Latin America on the Internet: A bibliography

by Rafael Tarragó

When I became a collection development librarian specializing in Latin America in 1986, there were relatively few sites with information about Latin America. In those days of gopher, when e-mail was a novelty, discussion groups and electronic lists were the most useful Internet sources of informa- tion on Latin America.

In 1991 the First Inter-American Networking Workshop was organized by the Organization of American States and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e technologico of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro. Twelve years later the Spanish-speaking territories of the western hemisphere are all online, the latest country to gain an Internet connection being Cuba.

Today the proliferation of Web sites, oftentimes unedited and unreliable, has made it necessary to rely on the expertise of subject librarians. Librarians specializing in Latin America are able to determine which Web sites are reliable, but tracking the explosive growth of the Internet in that region is not an exact science.

Several gateway sites are featured here, as well as the sites of important institutions, sources of news and statistics, special interests, electronic texts of historical data and archives, and databases that require the user to pay a subscription fee.

Gateway sites

• Guide to Brazilian Internet. Brazil is the largest country in Latin America and a pioneer in the development of digital information in that region. This site includes links useful to social scientists, historians, and librarians. Access: http://www.fgvrj.br/fgv/ cpdoc/informat/guianet.html.

• Internet Sources for Latin America. This gateway site, maintained by New Mexico State University, is remarkable because of its coverage of Web sites from or about Latin America and radical groups such as the Zapatistas in Mexico. Access: http://lanic.utexas.edu.

• Latin American Internet Resources. This site has links to hundreds of Web sites of Latin American publications, government agencies, and economic data. Access: http://sterling.holycross.edu/depart- ments/history/alauria/advanced/.

• Latin American Studies Resources. This Web site is dedicated to advanced research in Latin American studies, including information about newspaper and rare periodicals collections, primary sources on microfilm, and Latin American government data. Access: http://sterling. holy cross. edu/depart- ments/history/alauria/advanced/.

• UT-LANIC. This site, maintained by the Latin American Network Information

Rafael Tarragó is librarian for Iberian and Ibero-American Studies at the University of Minnesota, e-mail: r-tarr@umn.edu© 2003 Rafael Tarragó

Center at the University of Texas-Austin, is a veritable library of links to sites related to Latin America. It includes the Web sites of government institutions, statistical data, bibliographies, and informative articles. Searches can be made by country or by subject. Access: http://lanic. utexas.edu.

Search Site Map About Lanic

Institutions

• Inter-American Development Bank. This site has information on the bank and on Latin America. It contains a database of 26 member countries eligible to borrow from the Inter-American Development Bank. Access: http://www. iadb.org.

• IRELA: Instituto de Relaciones Europeo-Latino Americanas. This site contains current information and events related to European-Latin American relations. Access: http://www.irela.es.

• Library of Congress Hispanic Reading Room. This site contains digital information on Iberia and Latin America, including country studies prepared by library staff and the online edition of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, an annual bibliography of monographs and scholarly articles about Latin America that has been published since 1939. Access: http://loc.gov/rr/hispanic/.

• Organization of American States (OAS). This site, which includes all Latin American countries except Cuba, has useful information concerning member countries and its own organization and procedures. Access: http://www.oas.org.

• SALALM. This site contains information on the activities of the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM), an international organization of librarians specializing in Latin America. Access: http://latino.lib.cornell.edu/ salalmhome. html.

News and statistics

• Daily Summary of Newspapers. This site includes daily summaries of newspapers from Latin America. Access: http:// www. spincom. mx/noticias .html.

• Electoral Data Sets. This site includes electoral data from third-wave democracies (including South America) gathered by Miguel Centellas at Western Michigan University. Access: http://www.centellas.org/ politics/data. html.

• LADARK: Latin American Development Archive. This site gives access to the Ibero-American Development Electronic Archive at Johns Hopkins University, which includes data sets and other information useful to Latinoamerican- ists. Access: http://www.jhu.edu/~soc/ ladark.html.

• Latin American Energy Opportunities. This site, operated by Target Research, provides business intelligence on the Latin American oil, natural gas, petrochemical, and electricity industries. Access: http:// www.intr.net/target.

Special interests

• Derechos. This site is an excellent source to online information about human rights in Latin America. Access: http:// www.derechos.org.

• Instituto Cubano de Economistas Independientes. This site contains information from the island, including reports on the economy and public opinion. Access: http ://www. cubaicei. org.

• Population Research Center. This site holds information on population and demography issues for the Caribbean and Central and South America. Access: http:// www. pre. utexas. edu.

• Religion in Latin America. This site provides information resources that combines animated discussion with contemporary research. Access: http://www. providence. edu/las.

• Women in Latin America. This site is dedicated to the promotion of networking and dialogue on issues related to women and culture in Latin America. Access: http://lasa. international.pitt.edu/.

• Zapatistas Communiques. This site contains the communiques of the Subcomandante Marcos, leader of the the economy and public opinion. Access: http://www.cubaicei.org.

Historical data and archives

• Environmental History of Latin America. Online bibliography of English, Spanish, and Portuguese language books, articles, videos, and Web sites about the en- vironmental history of Latin America. Access: http://www.stanford.edu/group/LAEH/.

• Historical text archive. This site con- tains archival information, including a section devoted to colonial Latin American history. Ac- cess: http://historicaltextarchive.com.

• Latin American National Archives. This site contains information about the Na- tional Archives of Latin American nation states. Access: http://www.unesco.org/ webworld/portal_archives/pages/Archives/ National_Archives/.

• Modem History Sourcebook (19th Century Latin America). This is a valu- able compilation of primary source Web sites. Access: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ mod/modsbook32.html.

Subscription databases

• Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI). This online index provides access to the contents of over 400 social sciences and humanities academic periodi- cals from and about Latin America from 1970 to the present. Produced by the UCLA Latin American Center, HAPI includes more than 200,000 citations to periodical articles. Ac- cess: http://hapi.gseis.ucla.edu.

• Info—LatinoAmerica. Formerly the Info-South database from the University of Miami North-South Center, this site covers Latin American newspaper and general interest periodicals from 1988, but only from 1996 in full text. Access: http:// www.nisc.com/Frame/NISC_products- f.htm.

• Latin America Data Base (LADB). Professional journalists produce three weekly electronic bulletins about Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, and South America; available on the Web or by e-mail with a subscription. LADB’s searchable archive of over 24,000 articles since 1986 is updated weekly. Access: http://ladb.umn. edu/info/prices. ■