The papers of the ALA (Agencia Latinoamericana) are divided in 3 major categories: the articles written by the contributors to the ALA (collected during almost 40 years), their correspondence, and the newspaper clippings of those articles.

The writers are mainly from Latin American countries and Spain, but with a few American and British writers also included, such as Waldo Frank and Hugh Thomas. The articles provide information on literature, journalism, sociology, economics and political history of the major powers of the world of that period, and in many cases relating to the Latin American countries.

The bulk of the collection is comprised of contributions from Víctor Alba, Marco A. Almazán, Luis Araquistain, Paul Andrade, Germán Arciniegas, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Julian Marias, Cristina Martin, Alberto Luis Sanchez, Salvador de Madariaga, Ramón Sender and Arturo Uslar Pietri. There are also articles by other distinguished authors, such as Miguel Angel Asturias, Alberto Baeza Flores, Alejandro Casona, Pablo Neruda and Alfonso Reyes.

Included among the ALA papers are articles written by Joaquín Maurín, who used the pen names of W.K. Mayo and Félix R. Anderson. He also wrote under the pen names of John Andersen and Julio A. Roy, but these articles ore not included in this collection. When signing correspondence, he used his own name, Joaquín Maurín, as well as J.M. Juliá and Ray Campbell. Joaquín Maurín's son, Mario, wrote some articles under the same pen name as his father, John Andersen.