Ramiz Galvão e a ideia de biblioteca como vitrine da nação: modelos europeus e trocas culturais no processo de modernização da Biblioteca Nacional

Abstract

This study analyzes the impacts of Benjamin Franklin Ramiz Galvão’s trip to Europe, in 1873, on the restructuring of National Library (NL), which was under his management since 1870. It seeks to regard this trip as a milestone in the modernization process of NL since it contributed to changing the library statutes and, mainly, to tuning the Brazilian library to other literary spaces in Europe and the USA. Firstly, this study highlights the importance of this trip to Ramiz Galvão’s intellectual development and how this kind of trip reveals the close relationship built between intellectuals and government then. Secondly, it analyzes the main fruit of his visit to Europe: a detailed report by Galvão on how the libraries he visited worked. The aim here was to collate information from both the report and the National Library Statutes of 1876 in order to understand how European models afforded both the development of a Brazilian library project and the establishment of daily activities in the institution. Finally, it analyzes how the trip enabled Ramiz to engage in an international social network, which encompassed booksellers, librarians and bibliophiles, and the importance of this network to the project of re-establishing the operation (and image) of National Library.