UNLOCKING THE VAULTS

The Cuban Heritage Collection

By University of Miami

September 21^st, 2023

“The CHC, a crown jewel of the University of Miami and its libraries, has had quite a historical trajectory.”

In May 1998 the University of Miami and the administration of the library established the Cuban Heritage Collection (CHC) as a new department of the Otto G. Richter Library at the University of Miami. This new area included all of the material in reference to Cuba that the library had at that time: with over 75,000 books and periodical publications published in Cuba and in exile, and approximately 4,000 linear feet of manuscripts, maps, posters, post cards, photos, and ephemera.

When the Richter Library was founded in the 1960s, during the era in which the Castro-communist regime seized power in Cuba, an exodus of Cuban exiles began. Among them were librarians Rosa M. Abella and Ana Rosa Nuñez. They were hired by the UM library and began to acquire everything produced in Cuba from the period of conquest forward. From 1960 onward, the library hired several other exiles, including Lesbia Orta Varona in 1966, Gladys Gómez-Rossié in 1967, and Esperanza Bravo de Varona in 1968.

The collection has continued growing, particularly the assemblage of books and personal and corporate papers. The CHC at the University of Miami Libraries is home to the largest repository of materials on Cuba outside of the island and the most comprehensive collection of resources about Cuban exile history and the global Cuban diaspora experience.