Brazil
Brazil
| Directory Information | Catalogs, Bibliographies, and Indexes |
| History | Legislative Research |
| Organization | Reference and Reader Services |
| Buildings and Facilities | Automation |
| Collections |
Formal Name:
Fundação Biblioteca Nacional (National Library Foundation)
Name of Librarian: Prof Eduardo Portella
Address:
Ministerio da Cultura, Avenida Rio Branco 219-239, 20040-008 Rio
de Janeiro - RJ - BRASIL
Phone: 55 (021) 262-8255
Fax: 55 (021) 220-4173
E-mail: dinf@bn.br
The collection of the National Library originated in the volumes the royal family of Portugal brought with them in 1807 when they fled to Brazil during the Napoleonic Wars. Its history is considered to date from the decree of June 27, 1810 of Dom João, Prince Regent. Although the royal family returned to Portugal in 1821, the Library remained in Rio de Janeiro. Through the nineteenth century the Library's book collection grew steadily and amounted to 231,132 volumes in 1895; by 1930 it numbered nearly 500,000, and now has over 8 million items.
The National Library has been changed from a single institution into the National Library Foundation which incorporates the National Book Department and has in its articles of association the duty to effect a national system of libraries and a national program for the promotion of reading. The National Library is decentralizing its activities and expanding its scope of action which means integrating four thousand public libraries and twenty-five state library systems distributed over nine million square kilometers. Also located within the National Library is the Centre of Interdisciplinary Research which was created to coordinate human sciences research based on the collections of the National Library.
Over the years, the Brazilian National Library has been located in several buildings. It occupied rooms in the Hospital of the Third Order of Mount Carmel until 1858, when it moved to larger quarters in a building on the Largo da Lapa; from 1910 to the present it has occupied a large building set on a square block and fronting on downtown Rio's main thoroughfare, Avenida Rio Branco. Despite the transfer of the national capital to Brasília in 1960, the government decided to leave the National Library in Rio. There is a need to build the Brasilia National Library for which there are designs developed in 1960 when Brasilia was founded. At the same time, there will be a huge deposit building of approximately 15,000 square meters in Rio de Janeiro. The Library is attempting to locate another government building to supplement the beautiful 1910 National Library building which is now at full capacity.
As noted earlier the collections of the National Library began with the collection of the Portuguese royal family and has been enriched by the addition of such private libraries as those of the Count of Barca, Dr. Francisco de Melo Franco, José Bonifácio de Andrade e Silva, Pedro de Angelis, and a portion of the library of Emperor Pedro II. In 1911 Dr. Júlio Benedito Otoni brought the private library of José Carlos Rodrigues, comprising 15,161 volumes of Braziliana, and donated the collection to the National Library. The library possesses several hundred incunabula, of which the oldest is the Mainz Bible dated 1462, and receives current publications by legal deposit. There are excellent collections of prints, early Brazilian newspapers, maps, historical manuscripts, and of music literature and scores.
Catalogs, Bibliographies, and Indexes
"The most important of the Library'spublications is the series Anais (begun in 1876), largely devoted to source materials for the study of Brazilian history, especially of the colonial period; it also includes the annual reports... The Documentos Históricos (begun in 1928) compose another series, devoted to publishing items in the library's manuscript collections. The Boletim Bibliográfico, issued since 1951, records publications coming to the library by legal deposit. Since 1961 the publication of the exhibition catalog Lançamentos do ano has presented a selection of the library's acquisitions.
"In Brazil many of the bibliographical functions of a national library are provided by teh Brazilian Institute of Bibliography and Documentation (Instituto Brasileiro de Bibliografia e Documentação). Although the Institute did not come into being until 1954, the Getúlio Vargas Foundation had been engaged in a number of bibliographical activities since 1947, including the development of a national union catalog, a printed card service (in collaboration with the Administrative Department of Public Service and with the National Printing Department), publication of the Bibliografia Econômico-Social, and copying of documents in it Photographic Reproduction Laboratory."
The National Library has established an online system PRODASEN--Information System of the National Congress. Through a network TRANSDATA, it is possible to acess the databases of the National Congress: NJUR - juristic norms; JURI - judgments and decisions of the Superior Courts; MATE - legislative materials; SIEL - electoral information system; and several other databases.
The National Library has embarked on an ambitious program to effect a National System of Libraries and a National Program of Promotion of Reading. In this "Library 2000 year" the goal is to build 5,000 Integrated Centres for Child Assistance which will be cultural centers for the promotion of reading habits. They will be staffed by personnel linked to PROLER, a program of reading promotion. A standard rate of 5 books per student was established to build their collections. The socio-cultural context of each region will define the criteria for the selection of each library's collection, estimated to be 5,200 volumes. Each library will occupy an area of approximately 400 square meters and will be distributed among reading rooms, recreation rooms and storage areas. PROLER is a project to develop several cultural programs including public redings of contemporary Brazilian literary texts and the publishing of literary magazines.
In addition to the National Library location in Rio de Janeiros, there is in Brasilia the Demonstrative Library, the largest library in the capital, with all the characteristics of a public library.
Included in the "Library 2000 year" is the projected automation of all activities. As part of this initiative, the National Library is planning the installation of an experimental laboratory to put the iconographic collection on computer. The goal is to make this database of images available to all Brazilians even those in the remote Amazon region.
Brazil has a telecommunication network called RENPAC which ensures
space to companies of whatever size, making possible a large number of
systems with specific services to central computers, communication controllers,
terminals and microcomputers. Other Brazilian institutions play a
relevant role in technological development such as IBICT (Institute of
Information on Science and Technology. IBICT maintains several databases
Including BASES - a directory of the national databases ; BPS - a database
of serial publications with titles existing in more than a thousand libraries;
CIENTE - a database on scientific and technological policy; CLIP - online
information on computer programs, among others. Databases on CD-ROM
may also be consulted including MEDLINE, LISA and over 600 other databases
produced worldwide. Online database searching is available from DIALOG,
ORBIT, STN, etc. IBICT also distributes MICROISIS to more than 700
users in Brazil.