ABSTRACT
In the 1980s, a group of Latin American specialists in South Florida took a hard look at bibliographic databases and found no Latin American database that provided English-language abstracts based on English and non-English language articles. Although information on political, social, and economic conditions in Latin America was available, it was not being gathered systematically into a computerized bibliographic database. The extensive Middle East Database of Tel Aviv University’s (TAU) Dayan Center was chosen as a model for a Latin American database at the University of Miami. TAU had an enviable record of identifying and incorporating a comprehensive base of bibliographic data about the events, social and political elements, and personalities likely to have an impact on the Middle East. Drawing on TAU’s database experience, INFO-SOUTH, the Latin American Information System, was conceived November 16,1987, with the support of a U.S. State Department grant.
