The democratization of books and reading, following the example of what he did during his tenure at the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL), will be one of the main focuses of the new president of the National Library (BN), professor Marco Lucchesi. Lucchesi’s inauguration is scheduled for the next 24th, at the institution’s headquarters, in Rio.
In an interview with Brazil Agency, Lucchesi said he was thrilled when he received the invitation from the Minister of Culture, Margareth Menezes, on December 30th, to take over BN, when he had been in Italy for a year. “The telephone made me so happy that I interrupted my sabbatical year and rushed back to Brazil, because this love for the National Library is unlimited and inhabits absolute gratuity, the will to serve the library and to resume the country’s destinations in a more broad and inclusive”.
The president of BN wants to continue the mission of taking reading not only to prisoners, quilombolas, needy communities, indigenous villages, but to the entire Brazilian population. One of his last experiences at the head of the ABL was to visit riverside communities in the Amazon, after the Anavilhanas Archipelago, using the Navy’s Esperança ships, which carried medicines, doctors and examination instruments. “And I asked them to also bring books, because books are always a great medicine, but especially in times of a pandemic, when you have to work with a dream, with perspective”.
Employee support
Lucchesi also stated that he intends to listen to all employees of the institution, which he has been attending since he was 15 years old. He usually says that “as long as a president does not disturb the National Library, the BN will always go very well, because it is formed by mature, responsible, republican staff, who have dedicated their entire lives to the institution, the result of the interaction of many generations”. For the teacher, it is a beautiful technical work, which deserves all the applause, including the resistance at various times. The presence of great technicians and employees helped to preserve and expand the large collection.
Facade of the National Library in Rio de Janeiro is restored – Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil
Lucchesi also wants to talk to retired employees, whose participation he considers very important because it is a plurigenerational work, with different visions, but which have always accumulated. He expressed concern about the preservation of the collection “which belongs to Brazil, the Brazilian people and also to planet Earth”. The objective is to listen to all the proposals and face the challenges.
One of these challenges is to work with the current demands of the book. The BN has the perspective of deposit, cataloging, storage, metadata production, conservation. With regard to preservation, in particular, they will be covered from physical books, in their various supports, to books born digitally. “Both physical and digital books are equally challenging”, he commented.
The internationalization of the National Library is another goal of Lucchesi. He intends to expand the institution’s multiple relationships, the eighth of its kind in the world, not only in the western world, but also in the eastern one. He highlighted the fact that the Ministry of Culture was reborn, with the welcome and democratization by the new government. “This whole idea of reconstruction conveys an image that I think is very grateful. We Brazilians are all in the midst of many ruins, and we need to reorganize them, rebuild them.
Education
The digital library will also have the support of the new BN administration. “In defense of the infinite, the idea is to increasingly democratize access, with the commitment to include citizenship in the democratic effort, the commitment to read Brazil, read the world, rebuild the world and Brazil”. The new head of the National Library said he agrees with the Minister of Education, Camilo Santana, who said that full-time schooling constitutes a great policy not only for education, but for preventing violence. For Marco Lucchesi, education and books are instruments to stop violence, especially among young people.
In his opinion, Brazil in recent years has lacked a profound educational project, without invasion of faith with the purpose of instrumentalization, as has been seen recently. There was a failure to produce the necessary interfaces for a social justice project, he commented. “Defending the Republic, culture, science, the vaccine, defending everything that has been denied in these last years of darkness and obscurantism”.
visits
It is also part of the projects of the new president of BN to promote meetings with children and young people to get to know the institution, created more than 200 years ago and which brings together a collection of around 9 million items. When he presided over the ABL, Lucchesi received, speaking in Guarani, children from the village of Maricá. “We also organized a seminar, so that they could talk about their own culture, in their own language”. ABL was also visited by representatives of the Instituto Benjamim Constant, for education for the blind.
Last week, during the holiday season, more than 3,000 people registered in a single day, celebrated Lucchesi. He reinforced that the idea is to work with the guided tour, making the BN, the oldest Brazilian cultural institution, a welcoming place for new visitors, especially students who live in the peripheries and who often feel intimidated by the beauty, the opulence of the building. . We want everyone to understand that these houses are ours, belonging to Brazilian society, they don’t belong to anyone. That is why it is called the National Library, the citizen library”.
“This library needs to be fraternal, maternal, citizen”. Contrary to what happened in July last year, when he refused the Order of Merit for the Book medal, awarded by the National Library to personalities who contribute to literature – because the honor would also be given to federal deputy Daniel Silveira (PTB-RJ) , supporter of the former president of the Republic – Lucchesi said that the distribution of tributes by BN will follow greater criteria from now on.
The institution has an Ethics Committee, which must act transparently, without conflict of interests, prioritizing recognized merit, “no matter where you are, who you belong to, where you come from, whether you are from the right or from the left. It doesn’t matter. The Library is not a production factory for ideological propagation. It is national, it is republican, from the State and not from the government”.
