Event celebrates 80 years of IBGE Library
August 27, 2019 11h20 AM | Last Updated: August 27, 2019 12h31 PM
Comprising 80 thousand documents, the IBGE Library pioneered automation in Brazil - IBGE Archive
The VIII IBGE Memory Panel: IBGE Libraries will be held next Friday (August 30), at 2pm, to celebrate 80 years of the IBGE Library. The event will take place at the auditorium of the Center for Information Documentation and Dissemination- CDDI in Maracanã (RJ). The Library can be accessed here.
According to Cláudia Prado, manager of the sector, the event will go through eight decades of history and will foster a debate on the services provided by the IBGE Libraries Network to the population in every Brazilian state. "The library has passed through major transformations, since the merger of the libraries of the National Council of Statistics and the National Council of Geography up to the digitalization of its archive", explains her.
Leandro Malavota, an IBGE historian, highlights that this sector pioneered the automation of archives in Brazil and has been upgrading to meet the demands from internal users – clerks and servants – and from the population. "Virtually all the material can be found on the IBGE portal. As an example, we have digitalized the first census of 1870. Thirty years ago, all those interested in researching this material had to come here. They do not need to do it today", states him.
The consultations to the archive on the IBGE portal added up to more than one million hits per year. Even so, says Prado, the automation of the physical archive did not reduce the importance of the library and the work of the librarians.
Malavota agrees that the librarians were essential along these 80 years of history. "The information can only be accessed by users once it is systematized and organized. The librarian is the person who does it. They are extremely important information professionals", highlights him.
Gustavo Saldanha, professor of Library Science of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, who will participate in the panel, is also a user of the library. "The size of the IBGE´s libraries network impresses the most. Its historical-cultural relevance and technological adaptation ranks it at the same level of the best university libraries in Brazil", stresses him.
The book IBGE Libraries: 80 years of Dissemination and Democratization of Information about Brazil will be released during the event, making it the 25th volume of the Institutional Memory Series.
"The panel is an opportunity to recognize and appraise the work performed by all the servants and clerks who were part of these 80 years of history", concludes Malavota.
