Sobre
The Company
Libros Latinos began in Santa Monica, California in 1973 and in 1977 moved to Redlands, 70 miles east of Los Angeles, where it remained until 2008 when it moved to San Francisco. The company has focused on building public, university and institutional library collections. Notable clients include the National Library of Medicine, The Getty, U.S. Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library. Specialties include the fine arts, history and medicine from all Latin America, with a strong emphasis on the academic and out-of-print.
Some of the People
Current
owner Alfonso Vijil has run Libros Latinos since 1984. He also owned Libros
Centroamericanos from 1986 to 2007. A graduate in Economics at UC Berkeley, Alfonso walked into the acquisitions department of the
Bancroft Library as a college freshman and started learning about the
Latin American book trade. He sold books from Central America and the
Caribbean to put himself through college and graduate school. He
worked in banking from 1980-1983 until he took over Libros Latinos. He
helped start Mexico Norte with George Elmendorf. Alfonso has traveled most of the western hemisphere looking for books on Latin America. In 2000-2001 he worked with Alibris building up their foreign
language division. During the last 30 years Alfonso has built large collections
in the history of the book in Latin America, and a collection on Nicaragua
that is one of the most important. Alfonso looks forward to being in San Francisco where he has lived
since the age of two when he emigrated with his family from Nicaragua.
Michael Calvello joined Libros Latinos in 2008. He brings 20 years of experience in the out-of-print and antiquarian book trade, as well as a background in multimedia technology and communications. Michael co-founded Bibliopolis with Alan Green in 1998. He taught computer graphics, multimedia and Internet technologies at City College of San Francisco from 1999 - 2003. He holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Art from San Francisco State University and an MS in Information Studies from The University of Texas at Austin. Libros Latinos began in Santa Monica, California in 1973 and in 1977 moved to Redlands, 70 miles east of Los Angeles, where it remained until 2008 when it moved to San Francisco. The company has focused on building public, university and institutional library collections. Notable clients include the National Library of Medicine, The Getty, U.S. Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library. Specialties include the fine arts, history and medicine from all Latin America, with a strong emphasis on the academic and out-of-print.
Some of the People
Our current intern is Rosemary Santos, a UC Berkeley graduate now in her first year at San Jose State University's Graduate School of Library and Information Science.
Our heir apparent is Mondo Vijil.
