Orlando Ribeiro’s personal library

The private library of Orlando Ribeiro comprises 13 389 titles of scientific works and was bequeathed to the Centro de Estudos Geográficos of Lisbon (CEG). This donation is a contribution to enhance the information resources available to the scientific community that Orlando Ribeiro had help to renew and develop. It was in the same spirit that he donated to the Instituto de Geografia da Faculdade de Letras of the Oporto University an important set of publications that were duplicated in both his library and that of the CEG.

Envisaging a wider diffusion and easier utilization of his bibliographic legacy, a project was launched to organize and process the collection so to make available the corresponding catalogue on the Internet. The project has been carried out by a team of library professionals, under the technical co-ordination of Joaquina Feijão and the scientific orientation of Suzanne Daveau. The first phase of the project (2001-2003) was funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia and the second phase (2004) by the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. The catalogue was completed during the year 2005.

Envisaging a wider diffusion and easier utilization of his bibliographic legacy, a Project was launched to organize and process the collection so to make available the corresponding catalogue on the Internet. The project has been carried out by a team of library professionals, under the scientific co-ordination of Suzanne Daveau. The first phase of the Project (2001-2003) was funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia. In the current stage the work has been subsidized by the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.

The history of the library may be summarized as follow. It gathers the works that Orlando Ribeiro acquired since he was a young student. The first book that he bought seems to have been the Notícia sobre a carta hypsométrica de Portugal, by Paul Choffat (1907), featuring his signature dated of December 1929. By 1966 the library received the books that Suzanne Daveau brought from France and was then collocated in the Vale de Lobos house. Since then, the library is further developed by continuous purchases, exchanges and donations, the most recent works being registered in 2004.

Beyond its scientific value, the documentation now made available has the particularity to let us know 3218 dedications by a great variety of authors. The front matter of the works with dedications was digitized and the images are accessible from the respective bibliographic records. These dedications help us to understand the network of Orlando Ribeiro’s and Suzanne Daveau’s relationships, which includes a wide variety of important names and largely exceeds the academic world. In some cases, as in the brief dedications by the Prime-Minister Marcelo Caetano, the respect for the man and the scientist is patent. Other, more affectionate, demonstrate closer relationships, as in those by the historian Manuel Viegas Guerreiro who signs his nickname "Blé", the poet Ruy Cinaty who addresses to Orlando Ribeiro as the "grumbling Orlando"; or the geologist Georges Zbyszewski, who jokes with the expression "H. M. Agakham Ribeiro II", or, yet, the long and good-humoured dedications by the writer Vitorino Nemésio, remembering the travels they made together.

(Photographs © Duarte Belo)