Bibliotecas e sociedade na primeira república brasileira: fatores sócio-culturas que atuaram na criação e instalação de bibliotecas de 1890 a 1930

Abstract

Social and cultural factors that interfered in the foundation and establishment or libraries in the Brazilian First Republic were inquired. The starling point was the supposition that the library is a social agency organized to care for certain needs of a social group or of the society as a whole; therefore its study must be confronted with the socio-cultural enviroment. A theoretical approach made possible to establish other suppositions. Darcy Ribeiro's theory of socio-cultural evolution was used to explain the condition of underdevelopment peculiar to the Brazilian First Republic. The literature review pointed the factors acting on libraries, specially in underdeveloped countries, whose culture was formed under constant external dependence. In order to know the eventual variables affectin the foundation and growth of libraries in Brazil, the features of Brazilian socio-cultural formation, from 1889 to 1930, were presented. The analysis of data on libraries of that period, confronted with the socio-cultural aspects, confirmed the most interfering factors in the foundation of libraries in underdeveloped countries and the suppositions construtecd from the theorical approach.