Challenges in Knowing, Preserving, and Sharing Mexico’s Bibliographical Legacy1
CalRBS 2026 Lecture
by invitation only
UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Drawing Room
August 12, 2026, 4:30pm
reception to follow
Mexico has one of the richest bibliographical heritages in the Americas, including colonial libraries, early printed books, manuscripts, and historical collections that reflect centuries of cultural and intellectual history. Yet the bibliographical landscape remains only partially mapped. Dispersed collections, uneven levels of description, and fragmented digital initiatives continue to shape how this heritage is discovered, studied, and shared.
This lecture explores some of the challenges involved in knowing, preserving, and sharing Mexico’s bibliographical heritage. Rather than focusing only on conservation, it examines how cataloguing, digitization, and public engagement influence our understanding of the historical record and the ways in which cultural heritage becomes accessible to different audiences.
Particular attention will be given to the relationship between bibliographical knowledge and digital access. While digitization has expanded opportunities for research and preservation, many important projects involving Mexican collections are hosted and managed outside Mexico, raising broader questions about visibility, access, and responsibility in the digital age.
Ultimately, this lecture suggests that preserving collections is only part of the task. The future of Mexico’s bibliographical heritage depends equally on improving its documentation, reconnecting dispersed collections, and developing new ways of bringing historical materials closer to researchers, students, and the wider public.
Guillermo Morales is professor at the College of Classics in the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) since 2013, he has taught several subjects as “Rare Book Collections”, “Classical Tradition in Mexican Literature” and “Latin Culture”. He studied Philology at the UNAM Faculty of Philosophy and Literature, attended Rare Book and History of Libraries special programs of the Complutense University of Madrid, and University of California, Los Angeles (CalRBS) as well. He recently achieved his PhD degree in Studies of Information and Library Science, also at UNAM.
He has worked as librarian on special collections, but also as digital platforms copywriter and brand strategist. Therefore his interests and experience concern not only with history of book, but social media and bibliographic heritage socialization.
- El presente texto es una reflexión desprendida del proyecto “Textos educativos de la Real Universidad de México del siglo XVII: análisis de marginalia en los libros antiguos de la Biblioteca Nacional de México” supervisado por la Dra. Adriana Álvarez Sánchez en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Estancia posdoctoral realizada gracias al Programa de Becas Posdoctorales en la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (POSDOC). ↩︎