Looking for the lost bibliography. The Brazilian case

Abstract

From a research carried out in the online catalog of the National Library of Rio de Janeiro, in the databases of Scielo, of the Portal de Periódicos Capes and of BRAPCI, we recovered 138 Brazilian periodicals related to librarianship and information science. The scientific production on the subject of Bibliography, understood both as a science and as a subject of degree course or, again, as an instrument of organization returned us 73 publications. In the context of review articles of periodicals presenting metric analyses on published topics, citations, etc., Bibliography as a specific theme is not present. Starting from these results, we have therefore asked ourselves what vision and definition have been constructed of Bibliography in the 20th century in Brazil in the field of library studies and of information science. To understand the path of bibliographic studies, it was necessary to reconstruct a historical context that would allow an understanding of the relationship between national policies and information policies along the 20th century. We have discovered, in this way, that the investment choices that have privileged almost exclusively scientific-technological research meant that bibliometry became the only form of reflection and of bibliographic research in the country at least until the early years of the 21st century.