If you would like to look around in the stacks here or at another university library, these are the general Library of Congress call numbers for the different Latin American countries and regions:
Mexico--F1201
Latin America (in general)--F1401
Central America (in general)--F1421
Belize--F1441
Guatemala--F1461
El Salvador--F1481
Honduras--F1501
Nicaragua--F1521
Costa Rica--F1541
Panama--F1561
West Indies (in general)--F1601
Bermuda--F1630
Bahamas--F1650
Cuba--F1751
Jamaica--F1861
Haiti--F1900
Dominican Republic--F1931
Puerto Rico--F1951
Lesser Antilles (in general)--F2001
Caribbean Area--F2155
South America (in general)--F2201
Columbia--F2251
Venezuela--F2301
Guiana--F2351
Surinam--F2401
French Guiana--F2441
Brazil--F2501
Paraguay--F2661
Uruguay--F2701
Argentina--F2801
Falkland Islands--F3031
Chile--F3051
Bolivia--F3301
Peru--F3401
Ecuador--F3701
Books dealing with subjects can be located elsewhere, according to the subject:
United States diplomatic history--by other country--E183.8 (in American history)
Slavery--HT1126 (any time, anywhere)
Guantanamo--VA68 (with military history)
Cuban Missile Crisis--E841 (with Kennedy's administration)
Sugar Industry--HD9114 (with business)
Rubber Industry--HD9161 (with business)
Banana trade--HD9259.B3 (with business)
The UT Tyler Libraries Catalog includes circulating books, reference books, books on microfilm and microfiche, state documents, and thousands of e-books.
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“A primary source is firsthand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic under investigation. The nature and value of a source cannot be determined without reference to the topic and questions it is meant to answer. The same document, or other piece of evidence, may be a primary source in one investigation and secondary in another. The search for primary sources does not, therefore, automatically include or exclude any category of records or documents.” (Yale University Library)
Primary sources may include diaries, letters, speeches, interviews, autobiographies, personal narratives, eyewitness accounts, memoirs, or government documents. They may be published or unpublished, printed or handwritten, on microfilm or fiche or online.
Start your search in the UT Tyler catalog with a subject or keyword subject, then enter one of the following words as a separate subject, then click on search.
Sources [will pull up collections of documents]
Diaries
Correspondence
Interviews
Personal narratives
You may also want to try for certain keywords in the title, usually the subtitle, such as "documentary history," "letters," or "papers." You will almost certainly get some false hits, but you can weed through them.
Books and ebooks are assigned Library of Congress subject headings, whether they are in the UT Tyler Library catalog or in WorldCat. They are listed at the bottom of each book's record as hot links to get you to other materials on that specific subject.
Subject headings also often have subheadings that further limit the subject, and sometimes those are limited by date.
For example:
Guatemala--Social life and customs
Guatemala--Ethnic relations
Guatemala--Social conditions
Guatemala--Race relations
Guatemala--Foreign relations--United States
Guatemala--Politics and government, 1821-1945
Guatemala--Politics and government, 1985-
Guatemala--History, 1945-1985
Guatemala--History--Revolution, 1985-
Places can also be subdivisions of subjects--
Liberation movements--Guatemala
Human rights--Guatemala
Indigenous peoples--Guatemala
Mayas--Crimes against--Guatemala
Social classes--Guatemala
Guerrillas--Guatemala--History
By restricting your search to Subject rather than Keyword, you will be able to narrow down your results to books where your topic is a main, rather than a tangential subject.