TRACES OF CONSTANTIN'S LIBRARY ECONOMY IN BRAZIL

Abstract

This article investigates the traces of the dissemination of the term "Biblioteconomia" in Brazilian sources between 1870 and 1930. The research is based on the Manual Bibliothéconomie by Léopold Auguste Constantin Hesse, published in Paris between 1839 and 1841. The study is justified by the gap between the wide circulation of the work in Europe, marked by translations and appropriations, and its rare presence in Brazilian historiography. The methodology, qualitative and documentary in nature, aligns with the three spheres of the History of Science (epistemic, historiographical, and contextual) and Carlo Ginzburg's evidential paradigm. The analysis maps the references to the Manual in the development of the chapter on public library statistics and identifies the first records in Portuguese-language documents. The results show the first use of the term by Ramiz Galvão in an official report of the National Library, as well as the first nominal mention of Constantin in the introduction to the institution's manuscript catalogue. Furthermore, they evidence a synchronism with Argentina, where the statistical data from the work were also utilized. The research does not establish linear causal relationships but gathers evidence of the circulation and conceptual appropriation of this Manual in Brazil. The data demonstrate that the dissemination of the term and its principles in national sources, which occurred between 1858 and 1909, most likely influenced the naming of the first Library Science courses in the country.