Next, different accounting practices and currencies discourage some dealers from participating in international trade. For example, bookstores in Santiago de Chile are unlikely to carry or have knowledge of recent publications from Buenos Aires, in Montevideo you are not apt to find good publications from Venezuela or Central America, etc. I believe there is a tendency in the United States to think of South America as being much more compact, with a much greater flow if inf ormation between countries than actually exists. In this regard, the formation of the Museum's collection of Latin American materials has depended very much upon the use of travel as an acquisition tool. Travel has allowed me to actually purchase large numbers of books and to identify dealers that are willing to sell to and bill the Museum as an institution.
Travel is a great luxury, but very effective device.
At this time I have added to the collection approximately 550 new Latin American titles and more than 4400 35mm slides. The work continues. It has been exciting and gratifying to watch this collection grow develop and grow. Now I would like to enumerate some of the challenges that I believe face art librarians in the United States and Latin America based upon my experiences of the past two years. First, there is a genuine need for better communication between colleagues and libraries.