The principal collection for Spanish and Latin American Studies is located in the north end of the
Main Library (Wilkins Building.) See separate pages for
maps and opening hours.
Book collections
The book collections for Spanish and Latin American studies are broadly arranged in the following
subject sections:
- Section A: Spanish studies generally
- Section B: Spanish language
- Section C: Spanish literature
- Section D: Mediaeval literature, to 1490
- Section F: Literature of the Golden Age, 1490-1700
- Section J: Literature of the 18th century
- Section M: Literature from 1800 to 1898
- Section P: Literature from 1898 to 1936
- Section R: Contemporary literature, from 1936
- Section XA: Latin-American Studies generally
- Section XB: Spanish language in Latin America
- Section XC: Spanish-American literature generally
- Section XD: Literature of the Conquest and colonial period, 1492-1808
- Section XJ: Literature of the Independence period and after, 1808-1910
- Section XR: Contemporary literature, from 1910
In addition, there is a separate collection of Catalan language
and literature arranged as follows:
- Section A: Catalan studies generally
- Section B: Catalan language
- Section C: Catalan literature generally
- Section D: Catalan literature (arranged by author)
UCL Library has its own classification scheme for arranging books on the shelves; a typical
classmark for an open-access book will consist of the name of a subject (indicating a section of the
library) followed by letters and numbers denoting its classified position on the shelves in that
section. For example, a work by Pardo Bazán will have the classmark SPANISH M 235, in which:
- SPANISH refers to the books collection
- M signifies Spanish literature of the period 1800 to 1898
- 235 is the number specific to Pardo Bazán
A book about Pardo Bazán by David Henn will have the classmark SPANISH M 235 HEN, where the
last three letters show the author's last name.
A classmark beginning with the word STORE, or with a number - e.g. 98-15234 - refers to a work
housed away from the Main Library. For these works, click the 'Request' button and fill in the online
Store Request Form. Most but not all of the
items in Store can be borrowed. Click here for more information about
Stores.
Some of the other sections of UCL's Libraries you are likely to need are:
HISTORY (Main Library, upper level): extensive coverage of Spanish social, political and economic
history.
LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY (Main Library, upper level): extensive coverage of Latin American social,
political and economic history.
LITERATURE (Main Library, north end): includes generic literary and translation theory, and a
small collection of Spanish and Latin American literature translated into English.
PHONETICS & LINGUISTICS (Main Library, south end): books and periodicals supporting
the theory and practice of language study.
ART (Main Library, south junction): sections Q-QN comprise UCL's FILM STUDIES
collection. Books with the classmark ART QM 25 deal specifically with Spanish
cinema,
and books with the classmark
ART QM 83 deal specifically with Latin American cinema, arranged
alphabetically by country (e.g. ART QM
83 ARG for Argentina.). Please note that film studies books written in Spanish
or Portuguese are shelved within the Spanish or Portuguese sections
at SPANISH A62 or PORTUGUESE A62.
ANTHROPOLOGY (2nd Floor, Science Library, DMS Watson Building): material relating to Spanish and
Latin American cultural studies.
Periodicals
Periodicals for Spanish and Latin American Studies are part of the ROMANCE PERIODICALS collection,
housed in the North Corridor of the Main Library. This collection also incorporates French and Italian
periodicals. Periodicals are usually available for loan, although sometimes overnight only.
HUMANITIES PERIODICALS is a collection of multidisciplinary humanities periodicals. (The collection was known as ARTS PERIODICALS up to September 2007.) It is
located on the upper level of the Main Library, beyond the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Reading Room..
For electronic journals, see below.
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The three main types of electronic resources available are:
- catalogues of holdings, e.g. eUCLid for UCL libraries
- tools for carrying out literature searches, such as bibliographic databases (indexes and
abstracts) which help you to find book titles and articles in periodicals
- full text resources, such as electronic journals and books
Library catalogues are open access on the internet. However, your personal record on eUCLid is accessible only through login. To login, enter your barcode which is on the back of your UCL ID card. Your PIN code is your birthday DDMM.
Other
material held in electronic form is available to registered members of UCL: you will usually need
your UCL user ID/password for computer services in order to gain access to them. Most of our electronic resources (exception: some e-journals) are available through our electronic gateway, Metalib. To use e-resources from home, enter Metalib from UCL Library Services home page, and login. A leaflet on Metalib's facilities is available in print and electronically.
You have access to an online tutorial on using e-resources, including information on finding foreign language material on eUCLid. Connect to Moodle, login with your UCL username/password, and find WISE Arts & Humanities.
Here are a few quick tips for finding material on eUCLid relevant to Spanish studies:
For works in Spanish, use Advanced search and use the Language filter, and select Spanish; or enter the 3-letter string SPA as a keyword occurring anywhere. Portuguese has the 3-letter string POR.
For books in the original language only, use titles words in Spanish. If the work is a translation into English, then you can search for title words in English or in Spanish.
For translations, use 'translat*' as a keyword anywhere - the truncation finds 'translation', 'translations', 'translated'; and use the language options as above, e.g. for a translation into French select the French filter, or enter keyword FRE.
For works in the Spanish collection in the Main Library, use Advanced search, select Classmark and enter SPANISH in the box.
NOTE: if you want a work in Spanish, do not use keyword SPANISH - you will retrieve records of works in the Spanish collections in the Library as the word is used in the Classmark field. The same point applies to other languages which have collections named with the adjective.
For works in the Main Library only (i.e. not in Stores or other collections on other sites), use Advanced search and filter 'Main Library'.
For works BY an author: put the last name in the Author field in Advanced search; you can also use a title word or two in another box, as there may be other authors with the same name. You can also use a first name alongside the last name. If you use the 'Words together' option, then do a search for 'lastname firstname' and another for 'firstname lastname'. You could also use the 'Browse' option, find the author and click that.
For works ABOUT an author: put the last name in the Subject field.
For works recently published: do your search, and click the 'Year' header above the list of records retrieved.
For information about online access to the work itself or other libraries that may have the work: look for an SFX button alongside the record - click it for the pop-up menu. This will offer a 'GO' button for online text if we have access, and also an embedded menu to other library catalogues - the top one listed is University of London's catalogue for Senate House Library, which you can join and from which you may borrow books. SFX is particularly handy for journals, as we have online access to quite a lot of them, as well as, or instead of, print.
Databases
Among the bibliographic databases offered by the Library are:
- Arts & Humanities Citation
Index: indexes over 1200 journals in all areas of humanities, from 197 onwards. AHCI is a subset of Web of Science.
- Chicano Database: comprehensive bibliographic index representing all types of material for information about Mexican-American topics. Provides extensive coverage from 1960s onwards..
- FIAF
International Film Archive Database: Covers film literature from 300 periodicals; also
print sources for 22,000 silent films, a bibliography pf FIAF members' publications and a directory of
film and TV documentation collections. Coverage is from 1972 onwards.
- Handbook of Latin American
Studies: evalutations of social sciences and humanities books, book chapters,
conference papers, and articles published worldwide in the field of Latin American studies. Social
sciences and the humanities are covered in alternate years from 1990 onwards.
- International Medieval Bibliography: bibliography of the European Middle Ages (c.450-1500AD.) Indexes articles, review articles and notes from over 4000 periodicals, conference proceedings etc.
- MLA International
Bibliography: indexes publications on literature, languages, linguistics and folklore.
Coverage from 1926 onwards.
- Translations Studies Abstracts/Bibliography of Translation Studies: indexes journals and other literature from 1971 onwards.
- Translation Studies Bibliography: annotated references to: articles in journals, books, dissertations and manuscripts, 1994-2004..
There are many other databases that may be useful to you. Click here for a complete list of the databases available
at UCL.
Full text electronic resources for Spanish include:
Film Collection
Films are shelved in the Main Library Issue Desk area. Titles can be located on the Library
catalogue. The eUCLid home page offers an 'Audiovisual' search option that limits your search to films. You can restrict your search to DVD or to videocassette format by including the terms <DVD> or <VIDEO> in your search.
Films can usually be borrowed, and most are on two-day loan status.
There are video/DVD players in a film-viewing suite through the Main Library Reference Room. Headphones and
remote controls must be collected from the Issue Desk.
Electronic journals
A range of electronic versions of journals is available through our e-journals website.
Be aware that most electronic holdings of journals do not go back more than a few years. However,
older electronic versions of selected journals can be accessed via JSTOR, an electronic archive of journals from their start date, but excluding recent issues, e.g. Hispania 1917-2001. JSTOR can be searched by subject subset, e.g. Language & Literature, or Latin American Studies.
Links to some online Spanish newspapers and magazines are given here.
JURN is a search engine for the content of 950+ free electronic journals, launched Feb 2009. As it is still experimental, it is not yet on Metalib.
Exam papers
There is now some limited electronic access to UCL exams papers for Spanish and Latin American
Studies from 2000 onwards. Click here to
access them.
Other Web resources
Internet resources of academic quality can be accessed using subject gateways or directories.
These gateways are often complied by subject specialists and can therefore provide a quick and
reliable way of finding material of academic quality on the Web.
General humanities gateways include:
Gateways specific to Spanish and Latin American Studies include:
The UCL Library Services Film Studies Subject
Resources guide has links to other Web resources you may find useful.
The Department of Spanish
and Latin American Studies Web page has useful links to Spanish language newspapers and other
resources.
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All students registered at UCL are entitled to obtain a borrowing card for the
University of London Library at Senate House, which has stock for Latin American and Spanish studies. Also there is stock at the specialist library of the Institute for the Study of the Americas at 31 Tavistock Square, which admits UCL academic staff and postgraduate students for reference use, but admits undergraduate students only with an access request letter from a member of UCL academic staff. The union catalogue allows searches of University of London libraries individually or together.
Reference access to other University of London libraries is available for all UCL registered students.
The Instituto Cervantes and the
Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Council both have excellent
libraries and membership is open to UCL students.
There are several online catalogues to help you locate material not held by UCL, including:
- COPAC: an online catalogue with records of
the holdings of 26 of the top research libraries in the country. You can obtain books and articles
found on COPAC via inter-library loan, at a charge of £3 per item.
- The Union List of Serials: a catalogue
of periodicals holdings in University of London libraries and a few others.
Click here for more information about the use
of other libraries.
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If you have any problems in using the Library, come to the Enquiry Desk or contact the Spanish & Latin American Studies subject librarian - Diana Herman, e-mail d.herman@ucl.ac.uk, tel. 0207 678 2612 (internal extension 32612).
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