A Biblioteca da Saúde das Américas: a Bireme e a informação em ciências da saúde 1967-1982 / The Health Library of the Americas: Bireme and health sciences information 1967-1982
This master's thesis explores the genesis and earliest years of the Pan American Health Organization's Regional Library of Medicine (Bireme), now known as the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information. It discusses the immediate background of Bireme's creation, its foundation in 1967, and the administrations of its first two directors, Amador Neghme and Abraham Sonis, from 1969 through 1982. Bireme is depicted both as an apparatus and as a stage for negotiations, part of more general processes in development, science and technology information, international cooperation, and health policies within the context of Latin America. The text also examines Bireme's stances in the movement to expand and reform medical teaching in the region. Its historical trajectory began with the conception of a Latin American regional library of medicine, following a model that US medical libraryscience was then drafting and proposing for a system of regional libraries in the US, under the leadership of the National Library of Medicine (NLM). Given this foundational model, Bireme's early history can be viewed as a two-step reformulation of the regional library concept as designed by the NLM. Receptivity of the model was shaped by the aspirations and convictions of those responsible for molding Bireme's institutional project, by the circumstances of the period, and by the prevailing institutional climate. The original regional library model and an alternative model conceived starting in 1976 made radically different contributions to the current workings of the régime of health sciences information in Brazil and in Latin America.(AU)