LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections has called A Library for the Americas“a love letter to the library,” and I could not agree more. This long-overdue publication fondly celebrates the history and vastness of one of the world’s most important libraries dedicated to Latin American materials, the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection housed at the University of Texas at Austin. The volume includes eight scholarly remembrances by professors of history or art history active in US institutions, all demonstrating deep appreciation for a collection that shaped their scholarly lives. Their essays are written in personal tones that provide relevant insights on their individual intellectual journeys. Barbara Mundy, for instance, recalls that during long solo hours spent examining the late sixteenth-century Mapas de las relaciones geográficas for her first book, she never felt actually alone because she was engaged in “a constant conversation with the works and...

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