Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The National Library of Portugal

2002; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 14; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/095574900201400203

2050-4551

Fernanda Maria Campos, Rosa Maria Galvão Maria Luísa Cabral, José Borbinha,

Archaeology and Cultural Heritage

The National Library if Portugal (BN) dates from 1796. Legal deposit began in the 19th century, at the end of which the first librarianship course was established, operating within the national library. At much the same time a union catalogue was started which, in its current online form, is the national bibliographic database, PORBASE; by 2001 150 libraries were contributing to it. The present library building dates from 1969. The General Collection has about 2.5 million works, mostly Portuguese, from the 16th to the 21th century; one of its features is the collection of 12,000 theses, the deposit of which has been compulsory since 1986. Work on a new legal deposit act is in progress, at present enforcement is poor. A proposal to include electronic material has been put forward. A new preservation and conservation policy was initiated in 1997 with preventive conservation as its main element. A microfilming programme was launched in 1998, since when nearly 2 million frames have been filmed. The BN has acquired an Integrated Library Management System, able to perform online almost all library functions. The library is moving gradually towards a ‘virtual library’, conceiving it as a smooth process in the direction of a future where digital contents and services will coexist with the traditional ones. It is addressing the various associated problems in a set of interesting international and national projects and initiatives.