Preserving the Amazon: A digital lifeline for the Biblioteca Amazónica

Three years ago, a fire broke out at the Biblioteca Amazónica in Iquitos, Peru, imperiling one of the world’s most important collections of primary sources on Amazonian history, culture, and politics. For Amanda M. Smith, Associate Professor of Latin American Literature, the disaster highlighted the urgency of the project she had already begun: digitizing the archive’s collections to preserve them, at least in electronic format, for the future.