The event marks the 10th anniversary of the inauguration of the institution, which has a collection of rare works with around 32,000 titles and 60,000 copies
By Eliete Viana, special for Biblioteca Brasiliana
03/05/2023 9:55 am
The Biblioteca Brasiliana Guita e José Mindlin (BBM) da USP will hold the Seminário BBM 10 anos: uma biblioteca viva, on May 16, 17, and 18, at the István Jancsó Auditorium, located at Espaço Brasiliana.
The event goes beyond celebrating the Library’s 10th anniversary and its collection of rare works, formed over eight decades by the Mindlin and Rubens Borba de Moraes collections. The objective will be to disseminate the skills acquired, evaluate the results of the projects and partnerships developed over this decade, and think together about the role of a Brazilian library in contemporary Brazilian society.
According to the director of BBM, Alexandre Macchione Saes, one of the purposes of the seminar is also to reaffirm the importance of BBM as a public institution in these 10 years and to reframe its role in the future. “The idea is to think about producing something that makes the Biblioteca Brasiliana maintain its purpose of being alive, not only with its role of preserving such a valuable collection, but also fulfilling the role of curating accumulated knowledge, offering projects that stimulate permanent reflection on Brazilian memory and culture”, highlights Saes.
The institution’s vice director, Hélio de Seixas Guimarães, adds that the BBM still has the potential to be discovered in its collection. “Because rare works when they reach the university environment become the object of research and knowledge production and can become a lot of content”.
On May 16, at 4:30 pm, a thematic table will be held in honor of Guita Mindlin: the conservation of the bibliographic collection. Photo: Lúcia Mindlin Loeb.
Debates
Maud Lageiste, from National Library of France, integrates the table “Brasilianas around the world”
During the three-day seminar, the following topics will be addressed at the tables: bibliophilia and collecting; the conservation of a bibliographic collection; the challenges of digital libraries of rare works; brasilianas around the world; the future of brasilianas; research with rare works at BBM; the publications of the Biblioteca Brasiliana Guita e José Mindlin; and Brazil in the collections, the collections in Brazil.
The participants of the thematic tables are USP professors and managers of other Brazilian and foreign institutions, both teaching and in the area of libraries, culture or conservation of collections, such as, for example, the Associação Brasileira de Encadernação e Restauro (ABER), the Biblioteca Nacional, the Biblioteca Mário de Andrade and the Instituto Moreira Salles.
And on the last day of the seminar, May 18, at 7pm, a ceremony will be held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Biblioteca Brasiliana Guita e José Mindlin with the presence of the rector of USP, Carlos Gilberto Carlotti; the vice-rector of USP, Maria Arminda do Nascimento Arruda; the pro-rector of Culture and University Extension, Marli Quadros Leite; the director of BBM, Alexandre Macchione Saes; the representatives of the Mindlin family: Rodrigo Mindlin and Betty Mindlin; and of the representatives of the BBM’s Deliberative Council: Jacques Marcovitch (rector of USP, 1997-2001) and Nina Ranieri (professor at USP’s Faculty of Law).
Danilo Santos de Miranda, regional director of Sesc São Paulo, participates in the panel “Brazil in the collections, the collections in Brazil”
As atividades são gratuitas e abertas ao público em geral, mas devido à capacidade do Auditório István Jancsó é necessário realizar inscrição prévia pelo link disponível no site do evento, onde também pode ser conferida a programação completa do seminário: https://doity.com.br/seminario-bbm-10-anos
Certificates of attendance will be issued to those who register on the day of the event.
The 10 years of BBM
Marco Lucchesi, from the Biblioteca Nacional, participates in the panel “The future of brasilianas”
The celebrations of the first decade of Brasiliana’s inauguration began in March when BBM Publicações – the library’s publishing arm – launched on March 23 two books on Modernism in Brazil: Semana de vinte e dois: Olhares críticos, organized by Marcos Antonio de Moraes, and Releituras do modernismo: O legado de 1922 na cultura brasileira, with organization by Ivan Marques, both are results of the Library’s 3×22 Project.
The Biblioteca Brasiliana Guita e José Mindlin (BBM) was inaugurated in 2013. But its history at USP began earlier. The process began in 2005, with the donation made by the Mindlin family to the University. The foundation stone of the building, which was laid in December 2006, was attended by the then Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil.
The transfer of the collection of rare works from the private sphere to the space of a public university required the construction of adequate infrastructure to accommodate this entire collection and gave rise to the Brasiliana space, which now houses, in addition to the BBM, the Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros (IEB) and the Editora da USP (Edusp) as well. It also involved the establishment of protocols for conservation, cataloguing, digitization and consultation of the material.
The donated collection, which has about 32,000 titles and 60,000 copies, forms a set that reveals various interests: literature, history, manuscripts, travel reports, scientific books, typography, artist’s books, periodicals and iconography.
Part of this collection is available to the public free of charge and universally with the digitization of 3,372 documents, many of them very rare, including books, periodicals, images and maps. These materials can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from anywhere in the world. On average, there are about 1.5 million accesses per year, which reached a peak in 2020, when almost 3 million consultations were recorded in the Digital Library and BBM’s virtual projects:
https://digital.bbm.usp.br/handle/bbm/1.
In addition to the digital library, other digital projects are developed at the institution in order to bring the general public closer to the thematic sections of the library’s collection, such as the virtual exhibitions on Machado de Assis (https://machadodeassis.bbm.usp.br/) and Monteiro Lobato (http://ameninacentenaria.bbm.usp.br/), and the Atlas of travelers in Brazil project (https://viajantes.bbm.usp.br/), which transplanted to an interactive map of the country some routes and descriptions of notorious travelers who traveled through Brazil in different periods.
Finally, in line with José Mindlin’s desire to “inoculate the reading virus”, BBM has sought to connect with new generations, whether through didactic resources around the dates 1822-1922-2022, on the 3×22 portal (https://3×22.bbm.usp.br/), as well as with the classes offered on Fuvest books in the BBM no vestibular project.
Service
Seminário BBM 10 anos: uma biblioteca viva
When | 05/16: 2 pm, 04:30 and 7 pm
05/17, 10 am, 2 pm and 04:30 pm
05/18, 2 pm, 04h30 pm and 7 pm
Where | Auditório István Jancsó – Espaço Brasiliana
Rua da Biblioteca, 21 – Cidade Universitária, campus Butantã – São Paulo
How much | Free
Registration and Schedule | https://doity.com.br/seminario-bbm-10-anos