Dear Friends and Colleagues of the LASA Bolivia Section

Dear Friends and Colleagues of the LASA Bolivia Section:

During the past few years, I have been working with friends and colleagues in Bolivia to build a network of Bolivians and friends of Bolivia and mobilize resources for small-scale initiatives that can benefit local communities and organizations as well as provide a broad array of information about Bolivia. 

After a pilot period, we are in the process of publicizing the Red Bolivia Mundo (RBM) and pushing to grow it.  Please see www.boliviamundo.org and let us know if you are interested in joining us!

More specifically, over the past several months, we have had conversations with Bolivia´s three “Universidades Indígenas”–in La Paz (Aymara), Cochabamba (Quechua) and Santa Cruz (Guaraní).  Their creation was a celebrated initiative, but these institutions remain poorly developed and dependent on the Ministry of Education, which until now has shown no plans for strengthening them.

The Red has agreed to help these universities (in reality, Institutos Técnicos Superiores) build libraries, produce journals and foster studies in their respective regions. 

I am turning to the Bolivia Section because we share interest in Bolivia and higher education and because many of us have personal libraries with materials we might donate.  Each of the universities has a language specialization, but worthwhile publications in any language are of interest, especially books, journals and papers about Bolivia.  If you have such materials to donate, please let us know through our website (www.boliviamundo.org) or by responding to me (see below) and we will work out arrangements for transporting them to Bolivia and getting them to the universities.  Of course, donations to cover transportation and copying costs will be much appreciated.

Linking these universities to digital resources is also important.  Please send us links to online journals, articles and books that you recommend.  If there are access fees, perhaps you would be willing to cover them personally or arrange for your institution to provide waivers.

We are reaching out to those with experience in producing journals.  Production costs in Bolivia are low, but suggestions about forming editorial boards, putting out calls for articles and getting them to potential contributors outside Bolivia are welcome.  Especially welcome are articles relevant to the regions where the universities are located. If you have such articles and would like to have them published in these journals, send us the details and we will pass them along or put you in direct contact with the journals once they are established.

If you are interested in learning more and may have ideas about interinstitutional relations, fieldwork, teaching and publications with these universities, please tell us about that too.

Many thanks for anything you can do to help further the development of these universities and for any suggestions you might have for the Red Bolivia Mundo itself.

Sincerely