University Times

ULS gets grant for Bolivian monograph preservation

The University Library System (ULS) has received a $219,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to preserve and make more accessible 2,350 brittle monographs from its Bolivian collection.

The grant will help preserve on microfilm documents that are out-of-print, scarce, expensive, lightly damaged or stained.

"The competition for these funds was keen," said Rush Miller, ULS director. The only grants made for microfilming books were to Harvard, the University of Chicago, the New York Public Library and Pitt.

With more than 340,000 volumes, the Bolivian collection, part of the Eduardo Lozano Latin American collection, is one of the most extensive in the world. It houses more materials on Bolivia than any institution in the country itself. The collection includes holdings on Bolivia's wars and military and civilian governments, as well as microfilmed documents on the country's internal affairs and political relations between the U.S. and Bolivia. The holdings are rich in the humanities and social sciences.

"People from Bolivia, Cuba, Brazil and Argentina come here for their research," said Eduardo Lozano, the Pitt bibliographer for whom the Latin American studies collection is named. Lozano has been building the Bolivian collection for the past three decades, establishing exchange arrangements with 21 libraries in Bolivia.