READING IS POWER: the creation of popular libraries in the city of Recife in the 1940s – 1960s: he creation of popular libraries in the city of Recife in the 1940s – 1960s

• Autor(a) principal: Maria dos Santos, Rosana
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Espacialidades
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufrn.br/espacialidades/article/view/26135

The article aims to analyze and discuss the creation of the Department of Documentation and Culture and its importance for the development of public policies aimed at the construction of Popular Libraries in the city of Recife. In 1949, the president of the Recife City Council and Mayor Pelópidas Silveira authorized Law No. 292, of April 16, which instituted the creation of popular libraries in the suburbs of the capital of Pernambuco. The cultural and educational policies brought about by the law's enforcement impacted the lives of those who could have access to reading. The benefits brought by these libraries revealed a dimension never seen before in Recife's cultural and educational scene. Popular libraries broke with the immobility of the Public Library and managed to bring reading to the population farthest from the center, in addition to providing the intellectual growth of marginalized people. The implementation of public policies aimed at access to education through culture gave the residents of Recife an opportunity to encounter their own identity as a human being. These spaces for reading and sharing knowledge were an innovation, as they brought people together with the book. Until the end of the 19th century, these people could not even enjoy the public goods of common use by the people, such as squares, parks, whose entrance was limited by bars, so that only the privileged could appropriate them. However, this literary appropriation provided to the people was defined and controlled by the State, through the intellectual elites of Recife.