Librarian's Day is celebrated this Tuesday (12)

By Alessandra Holanda

Journeys to distant places, groundbreaking discoveries and characters that have marked generations, each story kept and eternalized in the pages of different books. Some of society's greatest relics can be found inside libraries, just waiting for people willing to find them. But in the midst of this sea of information, you need guidance, someone to point you in the right direction. After all, you can't get to the treasure without a map. This Tuesday, March 12, marks Librarian's Day, whose work goes far beyond just organizing books.

Like a guide who leads everyone to their right destination, opening doors and showing different paths from those already imagined, Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden librarian Rosana Simões Medeiros is passionate about her profession. Working at the Barbosa Rodrigues Library since 2002, Rosana is responsible for managing a collection of around 110,000 volumes, including books, periodicals, iconographies, dissertations and theses on botany and related subjects, the largest in Latin America in this area.

"My history with the Garden is one of passion, I'm in love with this history, with this collection. It's not just botanical works, it's also the history of the Garden, the history of Brazil and of science. It's institutional memory."

Working at the JBRJ Library for over 20 years, Rosana is still thrilled to spend the day surrounded by the works of illustrious authors such as Von Martius, Saint Hilaire, Glaziou and Frei Velloso. When she arrived at the Botanical Garden, the librarian had no idea that one day she would be able to understand the different botanical families and species. For her, all that information was part of a different reality. Over the years, working with the sources and themes made those names, which used to be strange to her, become familiar and part of her routine. 

Staff, researchers and students are frequent visitors. Many of the institution's employees use the library as a source for their research. In addition to the face-to-face service, it is also possible to contact them by email to request information. Regardless of the medium, those who come to the library can count on Rosana's enthusiasm and willingness to help them in their search.

"Some come here with a specific interest and it's our job to ask questions, talk to them, as if it were an interview, so that we can better understand what they're looking for. The librarian is like a guide who takes everyone to their specific book. It's the first law of librarianship, for each reader their own book."

Even in the midst of advances in technology, Rosana doesn't believe that the space will become obsolete, but it will undergo adaptations so that the library can also be part of the digital environment.

"What remains today is paper. The works, the books will continue to exist, even with indexing. In this process, the librarian becomes even more important, because you need someone to organize this information, to combine different collections. It's no good just putting it there and that's it, there has to be an order. It has to work like an organism." 

The Barbosa Rodrigues Library has exchanges with more than 650 national and foreign institutions and also collects, selects and organizes specific collections from national and foreign botanical gardens. The electronic catalog of the Barbosa Rodrigues Library can be accessed at http://abcd.jbrj.gov.br/biblioteca

*Intern ASCOM/JBRJ