 The Latin American Library, or LAL, a division of Tulane University Libraries, is among the world's foremost collections of research materials from and about Latin America, the Caribbean, and their diasporic communities. In this video, you'll learn about the different discovery tools available to search the Latin American Library's collections of print books, journals, newspapers, and microforms, as well as our archival collections, such as manuscripts, photographic materials, and maps. Go to the Latin American Library website, library.tulane.edu.lal. Scroll down to the research support section. You'll see a page titled, How to Search the LAL Collections. Please note that this How to Search page and video tutorial focus only on physical materials in our collections. If you're interested in digital resources, see library guides, digital collections, and digital exhibits and scholarship. The How to Search the LAL Collections page is organized by resource type. You can use the links at the top to jump down to a specific resource type, or simply scroll down. Books and journals are discoverable in library search. The link provided here brings you straight to a library catalog advanced search. Let's say you're researching architecture in Guatemala. You'll see that we get 240 results. If you scroll down to the location filters in the left hand column, you'll note that these items are housed in several different locations, such as open stacks, offsite, how we're tilting stacks, how we're tilting media services, rare and closed stacks, and more rare locations. There is a separate page on the LAL website called LAL Locations and Library Search that explains how to access materials in all of these different locations. Back to the How to Search the LAL Collections page. The next section is Manuscripts ephemera and image archives. Archive Space is the main database to discover manuscripts ephemera and photographic materials in the Latin American Library Special Collections. Let's say you want to see what we have on Belize. Click on any finding aid to get more information and see if the collection is relevant to your research. If you decide you want to consult a collection, email LALatoolames.edu to set up an appointment in the LAL Special Collections Reading Room. These materials can't be checked out and must be consulted at the LAL. Please note also that some archival collections are not currently discoverable in Archive Space. It's always best to email LALatoolames.edu to find out more about what the Latin American Library has in its Special Collections for a given research topic. The next section of the How to Search page is Newspapers. Library Search is the main discovery tool for newspapers, magazines and other periodicals available at Tulane Libraries in print and on microfilm. Remember, this is the same database we use for books and journals. To give an example, you can limit a search to the resource type newspapers and see what we have for El Salvador. Or, you can search the title of a specific paper, such as the Panama Tribune. In addition to using Library Search, there are two special resources for searching LAL newspapers. The Rare Newspaper Search allows you to search physical newspapers housed in the LAL Special Collections by country, state, city and title. Most of these are newspapers published before 1900. The Non-Rare Newspapers and Storage Link takes you to a filtered search for 20th and 21st century physical newspapers housed in the library's offsite facilities. You can refine this list using an advanced search. Email LALatoolames.edu to make an appointment to consult rare and offsite newspapers. The Map Collection is a subsection of the LAL Special Collections. There are two searchable PDF lists available to discover maps. Use Control-F to search cities, countries and other keywords on the list. Email LALatoolames.edu to make an appointment to consult maps in the LAL Special Collections reading room. Microforms like books, journals and newspapers are discoverable in Library Search. You can also use this PDF list to browse and search LAL Microfilm if you prefer using a Control-F search. LAL Microforms are located in media services on the 6th floor of Howard Tilton Memorial Library. Contact media services at tulames.edu for assistance. Finally, the Latin American Library has an extensive and growing collection of Brazilian Cordell Literature. These chatbooks are housed in the LAL Special Collections under a single call number. Up until 2019, Brazilian chatbooks were not individually catalogued. Instead, they were inventoried on an Excel sheet which you can access here. Use Control-F to search keywords. And make sure that you check each tab. In 2019, Tulane Libraries began cataloging Cordell Literature individually by title. This filtered search allows you to browse the library's more recent acquisitions in Library Search and use additional keywords to refine your search, for example. Email LAL at tulames.edu for assistance and to make an appointment to consult Cordell Collections in the Special Collections Reading Room. In conclusion, there's no one-stop database for discovering all the physical materials held in the Latin American Library collections. This video aims to offer a brief overview of the discovery tools at your disposal. Contact LAL at tulames.edu for further help navigating the resources covered in this video.