MercadoLibre and the Democratization of Books:A Critical Reading of New Material Affordances and Digital Book History Nora C. Benedict (bio) At the heart of most research related to book history is the archive, or the physical places that store historical and cultural records—whether manuscripts, books, photographs, or other forms of material (or digital) production. Most traditional archives tend to be housed in university libraries or cultural institutions, but here I will focus on a more democratic type of archive that does not rely on bureaucratic processes, unnecessary gatekeeping, or expert curators: MercadoLibre. This online marketplace, or what I deem a self-organized archive, functions as an open-access commons with equal opportunity for anyone to engage with and add to its holdings.1 Moreover, MercadoLibre, which has virtually no competitive pressure from similar sites such as eBay or Amazon, introduces new resources and perspectives for individuals who research and engage with the history of print production throughout Latin America.2 From never-before-seen publishers' catalogues and type specimen books, to entire runs of rare paperback editions from the early twentieth century, MercadoLibre provides access to materials that, more often than not, cannot be found in most library catalogues—whether national or international. In this paper I will discuss how Latin American book history in the twenty-first century is shaped by the (digital) availability of materials and online resources, specifically those available on non-Anglophone platforms such as MercadoLibre. In the process, I will reveal how the presence of rare, ephemeral materials in both a physical space and a digital, freely available space gives voice to often neglected literary traditions and marginalized global publishing histories.3 While online marketplaces might be described as databases, or places of solely monetary exchange, I would like to conceive of them as archives in the broadest sense of the term, or places where materials are stored and preserved. Since the term archive can mean any number of things in our contemporary world, I want to describe in more detail what I mean when I [End Page 177] talk about the archive—or archives—and, conversely, what I do not mean.4 In his first Rosenbach lecture, "The Transformissions of the Archive: Literary Remainders in the Late Age of Print," Matthew Kirschenbaum reminds us that "the archive is at once the site and the object of our analysis."5 It is simultaneously a physical space and a cache of material objects housed therein. For the purposes of this paper, I am most interested in the latter. Although my focus is on MercadoLibre as an online marketplace that also functions as a digital repository for rare and ephemeral materials, I am not interested in web archiving or how this particular space is maintained and preserved over time, but rather the opportunities that this site provides for bibliographical discovery and inquiry. In other words, I use the term archive to refer to the items that sellers list on MercadoLibre, as well as any and all data that these listings include.6 That is to say that I do not use the term archive to refer to MercadoLibre's overall architecture or interface. According to Richard Pearce-Moses, former president of the Society of American Archivists, archives are defined as "materials… preserved because of the enduring value contained in the information they contain."7 Despite the fact that materials (or archival records) can have "enduring value" in a number of respects, ranging from aesthetic to social or historical, it is important to note that someone—or some group of people—will virtually always determine what counts in an institutional setting. As Elisabeth Kaplan notes, "the archival record doesn't just happen; it is created by individuals and organizations, and used, in turn, to support their values and mission."8 In essence, the archival record is created by the few for the many.9 As a result, "the central challenge facing the archival community is to better understand our predisposition to privilege dominant cultures, which results in gaps in society's archives."10 In contrast, the concern for an object's "enduring value" and the limitations placed on who decides on what counts both disappear in...