User:Geekielibrarian/sandbox

Geekielibrarian (talk) 23:44, 16 June 2022 (UTC). History of The National Library of Rio De Janeiro/Fundação Biblioteca Nacional (FBN)

The National Library of Rio De Janeiro also known as Fundação Biblioteca Nacional (FBN) was created due to two major disasters in Portugal. The first major disaster was the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 the other major disaster was the Napoleonic invasion and 1807. Both disasters led to the destruction of the Royal Family’s Personal Library and The royal family fled to Brazil.

At the time that it was initially established the Portuguese Royal Library (the National Library, Rio de Janeiro) was considered the largest library in South America. In 1810, the National Library, Rio de Janeiro had over 60,000 materials in its collection including books, manuscripts, lithographs, cartographic materials, medals, and coins. However, Between the years 1810 and 1813, the FBN collections were guarded strictly and only available to scholars who were granted access. Even when the library was opened to the general public in 1814, only the educated elite was able to utilize the FBN’s resources for about sixty years.

The reproduction of the UBR index cards created by Otlet and La Fontaine was purchased by FBN to be used to catalog their collection. This purchase connected the FBN to the International Institute of Bibliography.

As an incentive To improve the book market in Brazil, in 1988 Federative Republic of Brazil of 1988 pass legislation on the tax immunity for books.

In 1989, the National Research Network or in Portuguese Rede Nacional de Pesquisa was established. The Rede Nacional de Pesquisa is the foundation of Brazil’s Internet. Because of the National Research Network, the FBN has a page dedicated to “Electronic books”  where readers can find PDFs of presentations of 50 major Brazilian literary works including a link to “Treasures of the library” which leads to images of all types of rare materials. There are plans to digitize more information on Brazilian culture for the digital library.

References