General Information
Africa and the Middle East
Asia and the Pacific
Latin America
Eastern Europe
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General Information

Acquiring materials from foreign countries, especially in the non-Western world, is usually simplified through the use of a vendor, rather than attempting to deal directly with publishers. This site does not attempt to identify all vendors, but rather is intended as a gateway to sources of information about the foreign book trade and vendors for foreign books.

While most libraries use vendors, they do not routinely make their vendor files public. Some library websites listing book vendors:

Also of interest may be the List of Foreign Publishers, Etc. compiled by Kathleen M. Best, Acquisitions Librarian, Bishop Payne Library, Virginia Theological Seminary.

The Library of Congress site has much valuable information on foreign acquisition. The section on the various reading rooms (http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/rrbrief.html) includes information on Africa and the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Hispanic, and Japan. Each of those, in turn, has links to related Internet resources, including special collections, publishers, and the like.

Africa and the Middle East

The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (http://www.ala.org/alcts/index.html) publishes a monographic series on foreign vendors The second in this series identifies vendors for Africa and the Middle East used by ARL libraries. This survey was published as:
Book and serial vendors for Africa and the Middle East: results of a survey of ARL libraries / edited by Karl E. Debus. Chicago: ALCTS, 1997. (Foreign book and serial vendors directories; v. 2)
The on-line version can be found at:http://www.ala.org/alcts/publications/africa/index.html

The Africana Librarians Council (http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/amed/9asa.html) includes listings of Internet resources of interest to Africana librarians. This listing has links to (among other things) African studies internet resources: libraries, bibliographies, book dealers, and publishers on Africa (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/area/Africa/BibInfo.html). The site is maintained by Columbia University.

Asia and the Pacific

The ALCTS survey of vendors used by ARL libraries for Asia and the Pacific was published as:
Book and serial vendors for Asia and the Pacific : results of a survey of ARL libraries / edited by Thelma C. Diercks. -- Chicago : Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, American Library Association, 1996. (Foreign book and serial vendors directories ; v. 1)
The on-line version can be found at:http://www.ala.org/alcts/publications/asia/index.html.

Latin America

The homepage for the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM) (http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/salalmhome.html) includes many useful links, such as booksellers on the WWW, a list of bookseller e-mail addresses, American universities with Latin American collections, links to home pages of Latin American national libraries, and the like.
They also publish a directory of Latin American vendors. Latest edition:
A directory of vendors of Latin American library materials / David Block and Howard L. Karno. -- 2d ed., rev. and enl. -- Madison, Wis. : Secretariat, Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, c1986. (Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials bibliography and reference series ; 16)

Eastern Europe

 See:
Book and serial vendors for Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union: results of a survey of ARL libraries / edited by Barbara Hall. Chicago: ALCTS, 1998. (Foreign book and serial vendors directories, v. 3)
On-line version:
http://www.ala.org/alcts/publications/easteur/toc.html ATLA World Christianity website