With over 220 languages spoken, and vibrant populations from around the world, Los Angeles County is one of the most diverse regions of the United States. Despite this diversity, there has been little crossover between the region’s distinctive collections of rare bibliographical materials and the communities that surround them. This panel is intended to begin a new dialogue between bibliography as a field for enriching our appreciation of rare materials and Library Special collections.


Image: Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Enrique Chagoya, Felicia Rice. Codex Espangliensis : from Columbus to the border patrol. San Francisco : City Lights Books : published with Moving Parts Press, 2000. 

The panel will begin with a keynote address by Marina Garone Gravier, Professor at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas, Professor Gravier will describe how a capacious bibliographic approach to the study of the Latin American imprint enriches our histories of the book and illustrates the significance of diverse library collections. This talk will be given in Spanish and simultaneously translated into English.

Following the lecture, a panel dedicated to describing community collections will feature two talks. The first, by Richard Soto, founder of the Chicano Research Center in Stockton California, will describe the center and the importance of making Chicano writings accessible to the community at large. He will be joined by Lizeth Ramirez, Librarian/Archivist for Los Angeles Communities and Cultures | Bibliotecaria/Archivista para Comunidades y Culturas de Los Ángeles, who will describe ongoing projects to document Los Angeles. 

Question and answer periods will be moderated by event organizer and BSA member Devin Fitzgerald, Curator of Rare Books and the History of Printing, UCLA Special Collections.