THINGS HISPANIC PATHFINDER
Scope, Introduction, & Key to Locations
Irv Koch Home Page
Scope, Introduction, & Key to Locations
Bibliographies, Indexes, & Abstracts
Biographical Sources
Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, & Handbooks
Journals, Newspapers, & Directories
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Geographic Sources (Dictionaries, Maps, Atlases, & Gazetteers)
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SLIS 646 Info. Resources in Science & Technology -- Bibliography

SCOPE

Argentina
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This site is designed for undergraduate students of an Atlanta University Center (AUCTR) component using the AUCTR Woodruff Library.  If you have a class research paper on a topic about things Hispanic, this is a good place to start.  It can have other uses.  It is probably too advanced for anyone below that level.  It is usable by persons above undergraduate level, especially if they are new to the library. 
 
It is assumed you do not know Spanish but may be considering learning it to satisfy a foreign language requirement.  That would be a separate topic.  Either way, you will probably want to check out the web based, free, translation systems, in the web-site section. 
 
A Pathfinder is a site meant to help you find information.  "Things Hispanic" is far too broad a topic for a site such as this.  I will nevertheless try to help with the original topic.  A manageable topic would be "Hispanics in the USA," or better yet, "Hispanic-American Authors."  In the various pages I will list the most useful items I found, but what is there may not cover all facets of the topic.  I will also explain some terms describing information sources and provide some tips on the library in general.  Links on the left will take you to the information sources.
 

INTRODUCTION

"Hispanic" generally means having to do with Spain, with speakers of Spanish, or with people who identify with ancestry from a Hispanic area.  Hispanics can live anywhere and, if not already, will soon be the largest minority in the USA.  They can be of any race.  In practice the Hispanic portion of the world is Spain, Mexico, Central America minus the English speakers of Belize, South America minus Brazil (Portuguese), as well as minus the Guyanas (English, French, Dutch speakers), but plus Cuba, Puerto Rico, other Spanish speaking portions of the Caribbean, and small parts of Africa.
 
There is more than one Spanish Language.  This is what the Spanish government and the Spanish ambassador to Canada have to say about that:  Sí, Spain.  Keep that browser window open and follow the up arrow, at the top of the page, for a one stop site for "things Spain- ish."
 
There is more than one Hispanic culture.  Each country and region has its own.  Some are variants of the larger ones (Mexican).  Some may be unique (Uruguay).  Some may not be Hispanic by all definitions (Basque).
 
That means you may want to search on "Latin American," "Latin your-topic," "Spanish your-topic," or  "Specific-country your-topic," as well as "Hispanic your-topic."  If the search engine has a "but not" feature, you will want to "not Brazil" and "not Haiti."  I am not including a section on "Subject Headings" but there are many other tips on "search terms" in the web-site section.
 
There is one last, extremely important, general tip.  If you have not already done so, go to the Index volume of any World Book Encyclopedia from the past several years.  Read the articles in the "Research Guide" section.  They may save you more time and be of more help than anything that could possibly be put here, as an introduction to gathering and organizing material, for any paper or project you have.

KEY TO LOCATIONS

There are only a few locations in the AUCTR library that you will normally deal with at undergraduate level: 
 
REF:  the Reference shelves at the front of the building and material just outside it in the "pit."
 
MAP:  the table for atlases and the like, in the "pit." 
 
MAIN:  the "Main Collection," starting on the bottom and continuing to the third floor.  There are maps to it, on walls, etc. but you must search for them.
 
GOV:  the Government Documents department.  It uses a different catalog number system.  The staff there will show you how to deal with it.  You will only be looking for very few items and they tend to keep those very handy.
 
PER is the "Current Periodicals" area.  I suggest, for now, that you use only the main "Current Periodicals."  Note that those shelves fold up, and a year or two of back issues are under the current issue.
 
CMC is the "Curriculum Materials Center"on the bottom floor.  I did not cover it but, in some cases, or if you are an Education major, you may want to try finding something in the "Juvenile Collection" (labeled CMC) there.  I did not cover audio-visual materials, but it appears their office is where those are kept.

BROWSING AREAS

This topic is too broad to browse for material.  On the other hand, if you do not already know what you are looking for, the catalog can be even worse.  (I recommend using the PALS version.)  Browsing helps if you are in the first stages of a project and are trying to get some idea of what to look for, or to narrow your subject down.
 
This material does not have a simple set, or small group of sets, of Library of Congress (LoC) call numbers.  It is scattered throughout the entire library like islands in a sea -- some isolated books, some groups of partial or several shelves, and a few large sets making up entire stacks of shelves.  The material in each set or book may or may not be what a non-librarian, or someone other than the publisher, would associate with the "subject" in the catalog.
 
I am still looking for a really good LoC classification guide but you can try About.com's or PLUS's Spanish-English chart.  The one from PLUS (Public Libraries Using Spanish) gives the most likely sub-classifications that many people use.  The About.com site links to a good discussion of using the LoC system in general.  Keeping open your browser window for either, and browsing their site complex, may also be useful. 
 
The following is a chart of the sea, showing major or potentially highly valuable islands.  It was developed by walking virtually every shelf in the building and examining the contents of a sample of books.  I will give call numbers or partial call numbers and my description of the subject matter.  You can then look in that area and nearby.  It works best in REF.  In the Other Books page, I will list some of what appeared to be the more useful isolated books as well as those in the list islands.  Encyclopedias, Manuals, etc. will be listed on their various pages (links on the left, top), isolated or not.
 
REF DP48.C233 through DP233.5:  Spanish history, politics, government,  arts, and civilization; mostly in the 19th and 20th centuries. 
 
REF E184.S75 area:  Hispanic-Americans and Hispanic-American culture.
 
REF F1203.M611:  Mexico and REF F1219:  Ancient Mexican art and/or cities.
 
REF F1405 through F1418, especially F1408:  Latin American and Caribbean civilization and history.
 
REF HF1002.B875 through HF1002.R678 area:  Spanish-English English Spanish dictionaries of business language.
 
REF N6502.C33 through N6502.E53:  Latin-American and Caribbean art.
 
REF NB553.P5 area:  Picasso sculpture. (Note that Picasso is also considered a French artist/painter/sculptor.)   
 
REF ND553.P5 area:  Picasso has his own section, especially books of pictures of his paintings.
 
REF ND801 through ND813 area:  Spanish painting and books on specific Spanish artists such as de Goya, Dali, El Greco, and Picasso.  (Note that some of these may also be considered some other nationality.)
 
REF PC4112.B88 through PC4822.O65:  Regular Spanish-English English-Spanish dictionaries and books on grammar, pronunciation, writers' guides, and similar material.
 
REF PQ6006.N4 through PQ6057.S68:  Spanish and Latin-American literature and writers.
 
REF PQ7081 through PQ7797:  Hispanic/Latino fiction, literary criticism, literature, history of literature, and related.  This is an especially large and useful area.  Within it, PQ7081 through PQ7082 and PQ7106 are even more excellent locations.
 
REF PS153.M4:  Mexican-American/Chicano literature and writers.
 
REF Z1551, Z1605, and Z1609 areas:  Lists of what other people have written about things Hispanic.  Some go beyond that to provide information about the plays, women writers, or novels, etc.
 
MAP:  As this was prepared, there were no current/good world atlases available.  The Reference Department staff were in the process of ordering updated material, in general, and stated they would remedy this.  The best alternative is to look for a specific area in the latest World Book Encyclopedia or an online source.  
 
There is, however, a large, highly usable globe, between the Reference Desk and the Catalog Computers "round table."  There is another on the top floor between individual study room blocks 230 and 240.  
 
GOV:   There is also a good/clear 1997 wall map of the world between the C-DC stacks of Government Documents and their wall towards the front of the library.  There have been no changes which would render these outdated for South/Central America.  Among other features, the globes and map show which mid-ocean island belongs to what Latin-American nation.
 
The other browsing area in GOV is the upper corner of the main stacks nearest the computers and tables area.  Look for the CIA World Factbook and the relevant Country Studies beneath it.
 
I recommend that undergraduates browsing the MAIN collection on this topic skip straight to the top floor.
 
MAIN DP17 through DP402:  Spanish and Iberian (Spain and Portugal) history, culture, people, politics, government, arts, civilization, and good browsing in general.
 
MAIN E183.8:  US foreign policy towards Mexico or Peru, Puerto Rico as a colony, etc.
 
MAIN E184:  About two shelves of material on Hispanic-American's politics, culture, society, members of Congress, Spanglish (a Spanish English mixed language) and similar.
 
MAIN E404.B37 through E411.M2:  The Mexican War of 1846-1848 (about a shelf of material).
 
MAIN E713.G7 through E725.7.C85:  American imperialism in 1898 and the Spanish-American war, "the US and Cuba," and similar (a shelf or two).
 
MAIN F128.9 P8L4 through F128.9 S75:  Puerto Ricans in NY. 
 
MAIN F381.T45 through F396:  Mexicans in TX, from the Alamo or before, to the present.  This is mixed with non-Hispanic material about the same geographic region.  The end of the section fades, gradually, to the Arkansas border.
 
MAIN F776.D76 through F870.A1.W93:  About six shelves of material on Hispanics in California, Colorado, and the SW US which stop at the Oregon border.  It is mixed with such material as a plot to kill Castro and general history of the region, circa 1800 - 1950.
 
MAIN F1208.C55 through F3738.H34:  Many stacks of shelves on ancient Mexico, Hispanic art, Latin-America and the Caribbean, culture and customs of Ecuador, history, language, and a few textbooks.  This is a good browsing area.
 
MAIN HC125.C34153 through HC197.R5:  Economics and economy of Latin-America and the Caribbean, politics, socioeconomics, Cuban communism, as well as The Capitalists and Columbia.
 
MAIN HD320.5 through HD473.T3:  About a shelf on Latin-American land, peasants, agrarian reform, and similar.
 
MAIN HG5162.W75 and a few books nearby:  Foreign enterprise and investment in Latin-America.
 
MAIN HN110.5 through HN140.T8L6:  Social change in Latin-America as well as related material on population, culture, and similar.
 
MAIN HQ560.5 F335 through HQ562.L43:  About half a shelf on marriage, the family, and sex in Latin-America.
 
MAIN HX110.5.A6 A73 through HX177.A43:  About a shelf on socialism,  communism, and related in Latin-America.
 
MAIN JL952.J6 through JN5.B87:  About 3 3/4 shelves on politics and government in Latin-America, a fair amount of it for specific countries in alphabetic order ending with Venezuela.
 
MAIN JX1425.A4 through JX1428.S7L3 plus a few books around JZ1519 - JZ1545:  The Monroe Doctrine, Latin-America in the international system, politics of South American boundaries, mixed with unrelated material.
 
MAIN M's:  There may be Hispanic music material in this area but it is too difficult to find by browsing unless you are a music student who already knows an exact title and call number, and bring a tall, strong, friend to help move the books.  Much of the N's (art) are almost as problematic.
 
MAIN N6502.C3213 through N6502.5 T713:  About a half shelf on Latin American art with Picasso at N6855.P5.
 
MAIN NA791:  A handful of books on Latin-American architecture.
 
MAIN NB237:  Two or three books on Hispanic sculpture/sculptors.
 
MAIN ND801 through ND813:  Spanish painting, artists, and the like.
 
MAIN ND2644.E43:  Three books on the painted walls of Mexico.
 
MAIN P140 area:  A few relevant books are mixed with other material on romance languages and linguistics.
 
MAIN PC3901.T4 through PC4841.B88:  Catalan poetry, Spanish for teachers, From Latin to Spanish,  Spanish-American life, a considerable amount of material in Spanish, and 13++ shelves on everything imaginable related to romance languages.  This is one of the largest browsing areas on things Hispanic in the building.
 
MAIN PQ5602.C2 through PQ8498.32.A35 and some in the PQ9xxx area, ending where Portuguese Angola begins:  Many stacks of material on Spanish language literature.  This is another of the largest browsing areas in the building on things Hispanic.
 
MAIN PR9200.9 through PR9216.V93:  Mexican folk plays, Caribbean women writers, Caribbean poetry, and fiction, etc. 
 
MAIN PS153.H4 through PS153.M4 V55:  Chicano poetics and Mexican-American poetry, material on repression of Mexican-Americans, mixed with unrelated material on ethnic or immigrant groups in general.
 
MAIN P508.C83 through PS508.H57 S49:  Hispanic, Female, and Young, The Latino Reader, and other stories and novels about Hispanics.  Note there is a misshelved section about other groups between the portion of this on the bottom shelf and the rest, on the extreme top shelf, following.
 
MAIN PZ4.F952 through PZ4.G2164:  One Hundred Years of Solitude and a handful of other novels by Hispanic authors.

venezuela.jpg
Venezuela

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This pathfinder was created for CSLIS 440:  INTRODUCTION TO INFORMATION RESOURCES by Irvin M. Koch at the Clark Atlanta University School of Library and Information Studies on July 24, 2003 (Summer 2003 Semester, Dr. Slone).  Site last modified November 15, 2005.