Why create a network of architecture, art, design and urbanism libraries in Argentina and Latin America? Would it not have been better to join one of the existing networks in developed countries, which are more efficient? But do we have the same needs, requests and resources? The Vitruvio network originated in Argentina about 10 years ago and has spread, unplanned, to other countries in this region such as Peru, Uruguay and Ecuador, establishing its objectives to suit the libraries co-operating in the project. Sustainable products and services have been developed, in line with the needs of the region, using a minimum of financial, technological and human resources, and highlighting the profession’s determination and hard work.

Grey literature, documentation published outside traditional commercial channels, is not very often taken into account by art librarians in Argentina, judging by searches on online databases. However, experience with grey literature at the Fundación Espigas, the highly specialized Argentinian art information center in Buenos Aires, is changing this point of view. The Center’s database offers access to a great corpus of such publications, especially to ephemera such as private view cards, pamphlets, auction catalogues, catalogues of solo and group exhibitions and posters. This ‘minimal documentary information’ has an important place as a resource, and would prove invaluable for any research project on Argentine art in the future. Indeed this material is not grey but unexpectedly brilliant at providing rich and hidden information.

The Fundación Telefónica in Buenos Aires, with its mission of contributing to the spread and development of culture and education by means of the new technologies and ensuring equality of opportunity for the whole community, in 2003 opened its cultural centre, the Espacio Fundación Telefónica. The Espacio comprises exhibition spaces, a video-conferencing room, a media laboratory, a cafeteria and a media library with a strong focus on both contemporary art and information and communication technology. It is now facing its next challenge, which is to build up the centre to be the leading local and Latin-American source in its field.

This paper describes the collections and services, as well as the current and future goals, of the Manuel Solari Swayne Library, an information service specializing in the visual arts in Lima, Peru. The library is part of the Museo de Arte de Lima, an institution that holds more than 10,000 objects, providing a survey of Peruvian art from pre-Columbian times to the present day. The museum’s current renovation project includes plans to double the space available to the library and thus create better access to this valuable resource for art history, museology and the visual arts in Peru and Latin America.

Art information providers in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, include libraries, archives, and documentation sections in art museums and cultural centers. In 1998 REDARTE-SP, a network of these services in the city, was created to facilitate discussion of theoretical, technical and organizational issues facing art information services and to formulate collaborative projects. The subsequent exchange of ideas, discussion of successful practices and development of shared projects empowers art information professionals, contributes to improving the quality of art information services and products, provides better use of the available resources and widens the circle of users.

Mexican art, dating back to 2500 BC, is enormously rich and stylistically varied, the product of the country’s indigenous, ‘mestizo’ [mixed race] and Mexican cultures, which range from Olmec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec and Mixtec, to Mayan and Aztec. During the colonial period, the influence of European art was added, brought via Spain, and at the same time Catholicism prevailed over pre-Hispanic polytheism. Mexican culture as it is known today emerged at the end of the Spanish colonial period and its wealth is amply demonstrated in the content of the writings and other documents found in Mexican libraries today.

The creation of co-operative networks for sharing information has been one of the most significant advances of recent decades in Cuba; they have been set up in various areas of knowledge in order to solve the problems caused by the increasing accumulation of data, images, ideas, information and objects. The difficulties faced daily by libraries and their users in accessing this information have led to groups of libraries working together and sharing information, goals and users. But visual arts librarians have not yet formalised a network of this sort, although preliminary analysis has shown the benefits of such co-operation.

This article traces the history of the Latin American holdings of the Museum of Modern Art Library, one of the first institutions outside Latin America to start documenting the art of this geopolitical region, and one of the best research centers on modern Latin American art in the world. This success story dates back to the thirties, when the Museum Library began building a Latin American and Caribbean collection that currently comprises over 15,000 volumes of catalogues and art books. The launch of various research tools and facilities for scholars and the general public in recent years also shows the Museum’s strong commitment not only towards Latin American art history but also to the present and the future of the Latino art community.

In August 2004 an English librarian sets out on a trip to discover the real Argentina. As she sees the country, meets the people, visits libraries, galleries and museums, and attends a library conference, the diversity she encounters begins to reflect her own shifting perspectives. Her experiences awaken within her a growing sense of the richness of Latin American culture.