CILA: A New Approach to Problems in the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials.

This paper attempts to provide a contextual study of CILA--Centro Interamericano de Libros Academicos--a new scheme for the distribution of scholarly books in the Americas. Because of the scheme's peculiar relevance to the needs of Canadian academic libraries, the status of Latin American studies and relevant library collections in Canada are first considered. The achievement of CILA and its limitations are reviewed in the historic and economic context of the problems involved in the distribution and acquisition of library materials from Latin America. Considerable attention is devoted to a study of these problems, and a brief survey is made of some of the attempts to overcome them. With this background, the purposes and operation of CILA are examined and an attempt is made to evaluate its contribution to the partial solution of some of the aforementioned problems. Finally, a number of conclusions are drawn from the examination. (Author)