Princeton University.

The Princeton University Library has developed numerous collections of Latin American ephemera that are unique in their depth and scope. Privileging the popular voices of the region, the collections document numerous political and social movements, and a wide variety of key socioeconomic and cultural developments. Some particularly well-documented topics are grassroots organizing, human rights, electoral politics, indigenous issues, women and gender issues, youth, the environment, health, education, and religion. Types of primary materials collected include pamphlets, non-commercially produced and distributed serials, flyers, posters, working papers, government publications, and other non-traditional formats. Most of the documentation in the collections was produced after the mid 1960s by Latin American nongovernmental organizations of all types, interest groups, political parties, research institutes, and government agencies. The intensive collecting of ephemera was initiated by Barbara Hadley Stein, the University's first Bibliographer for Latin America, Spain and Portugal (1966-1977). She sought to document some of the major political developments of the period, including the rise to power of military dictatorships, coup d'états, the institutionalization of the Cuban Revolution, and the popular responses to those developments. Her successor, Peter T. Johnson (1977-2003), expanded the geographic and thematic scope of the collections and systematized the process of organizing, cataloging, and preserving them. Intensive collecting in this area continues to this date. Over the years, materials have been grouped and organized by country or region, and by topic or subject area. Once collections are fully organized, they are cataloged and microfilmed. A complete list of collections appears in the Guide to the Princeton University Latin American Microfilm Collection (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1993) and subsequent supplements. Many of the collections' finding aids are available online. Original print materials have been preserved in many cases.