Comunidad letrada lettered community

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(64 64 64 1)>The concept of bibliodiversity is frequently applied to Latin America reflecting the breadth of publishing in the region from mainstream sectors of transnational publishing conglomerates and academic publishing to innovation in open access to growing communities of independent publishers. That bibliodiversity however is not fully represented in US libraries despite independent presses producing some of the most interesting work in the Latin American printed word. As collection development practices become streamlined in the US depth and nuance is sacrificed for ease of acquisition and predictable choices ignoring marginalized perspectives and emerging talent.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(64 64 64 1)>This collection presents US librarians with a sampling of the spectrum of Latin American independent publishing and its role in library collections. The collection includes essays from librarians publishers scholars and writers including scholarly studies publisher manifestos and personal reflections from writers and publishers about their commitments to independent publishing. Librarians will find studies of the role independent publishing plays in representing marginalized voices in university collections and teaching descriptions of the circuits through which independent publications circulate and publishing models Latin American independent publishers pursue and reflections from participants on why they publish and distribute their works outside of established multinational and corporate networks.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(64 64 64 1)>Lisa Gardinier is the Curator for International Literature at the University of Iowa Libraries (Iowa City USA). She has published on Latin American collections in US libraries in the </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(64 64 64 1)>Journal of Academic Librarianship</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(64 64 64 1)> and </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(64 64 64 1)>College & Research Libraries</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(64 64 64 1)>. She holds Master's degrees in library science from Indiana University and Latin American studies from the University of Arizona.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(64 64 64 1)>Marc Delcan is an autonomous editor for Ona Ediciones bookseller and publisher for La Reci (San Cristóbal de las Casas Chiapas) and a member of the Pensaré Cartoneras collective. He is the co-author of </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(64 64 64 1)>Cartonear es camino: Colectivo cartonero autónomo anticolonial</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(64 64 64 1)> [The path is cardboard: Cartonera collectives anticolonial autonomy] (Pensaré 2019). Marc holds a Master's in Humanities (Comparative Studies) from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona).</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(64 64 64 1)>David Woken is the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Librarian at the University of Chicago Library. He has published on critical pedagogy methods with historical primary source materials and U.S. farmworker history and is currently working as co-principal investigator on a digital scholarship project to preserve Mesoamerican-language materials held at the University of Chicago. He holds Masters degrees in Latin American History from Indiana University and Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.</span></p><p></p>