☼  LAT Reading Room Occasional Papers  ☼  
 No. 2, April 2006

 

Turned-On Tropics: 

Online Research Resources for Brazilian Studies

 

Edward A. Riedinger

riedinger.4@osu.edu

 

 

Tropical and exotic, mammoth and developing, Brazil has hauntingly captured international interest for centuries.  Its land mass makes it the fifth largest country in the world, extending over half of South America and stretching from north of the Equator to south of the Tropic of Capricorn.  The Brazilian population also comprises the world’s fifth largest, with nearly 200 million people.  Its language, Portuguese, is spoken by half the inhabitants of South America and a third of Latin America.  Indeed, Portuguese is a major language among Atlantic Rim countries.  Spoken from Brazil to Portugal and from Cape Verde to Guinea-Bissau and Angola, the lusophone population around the Atlantic basin amounts to nearly a quarter of a billion primary and secondary speakers.  Brazil’s trillion-dollar economy is the largest in Latin America and among the top ten in the world.

 

For students, researchers, and the generally curious, what online resources exist that can respond to their questions and interests regarding this extraordinary country?  Resources fall largely into four categories: 


indexes and catalogs
gateways
full-text retrieval databases

audio-visual materials

 

  Indexes and Catalogs

The two major English-language indexes most comprehensively covering Brazil are the Handbook of Latin American Studies (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/hlas/ -- public = P) and the Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI Online) (http://hapi.ucla.edu/ -- subscription = S).  Maintained by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress, the Handbook indexes and abstracts scholarly articles and books from and on Latin America and Brazil in all disciplines for the period from 1935 to the present.  HAPI is housed at the University of California, Los Angeles and indexes scholarly articles on and from Latin American and Brazil for the period from 1970 to the present.

 

Clase and Periódica are two databases maintained by the National Autonomous University of Mexico for indexing periodical literature from Latin America in the humanities, social, and physical sciences.  Both databases are available through the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) and can be accessed in FirstSearch simultaneously with ArticleFirst.  A keyword search in Clase and Periódica for “Brasil” brings up nearly 40,000 hits; and “Brazil,” over 18,000.  Information on these OCLC databases is available at http://www.oclc.org/news/releases/20031013.htm -- S.

 

Libweb (http://lists.webjunction.org/libweb/ -- P) connects one directly to the online catalogs of Brazilian academic and research libraries.  Over a dozen can now be accessed.  Among them is the catalog of the library of the major university in Brazil, the University of São Paulo.  Its library system uses MARC record standards and contributes to OCLC.  Libweb accesses the two largest US collections of Latin American and Brazilian holdings, at the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress and the University of Texas at Austin.  It also connects to the leading specialized collections on Brazil:  the Newberry Library, the Lilly Library at Indiana University-Bloomington, the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, and the Oliveira Lima Library at the Catholic University of America.

 

 Full-Text Retrieval Databases

Online full-text retrieval of Brazilian scholarly periodical literature is provided through SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online (http://www.scielo.org/index.php?lang=en –- P).  It indexes and provides retrieval of journal articles primarily in the technical, physical, and medical sciences but also in the humanities and applied social sciences.  It retrieves not only Brazilian scholarly texts but also ones from Chile, Venezuela, Cuba, and Spain.  Holding articles published in English, Spanish, or Portuguese, the site is navigable in these same languages.  It is maintained by two major Brazilian universities in conjunction with the Brazilian National Research Council.  Full-text Brazilian journals can also be accessed through the Directory of Open Access Journals at http://www.doaj.org/home -- P.

 

For full-text scholarly articles on Brazil in English, the two major sources are JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/ -- S) and Project MUSE (http://muse.jhu.edu/ -- S).  The former includes the complete serial runs of five major Latin American-related journals (to which more will be added) together with numerous ancillary journals in the humanities and social science.  Project MUSE includes the major journal for Brazilian studies, the Luso-Brazilian Review, from the University of Wisconsin.  However, full-text coverage only began with volume 42 (2004).  JSTOR is soon to include the complete run.  Full-text retrieval from the official journal of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, Hispania, is available at

http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/FichaObra.html?Ref=3611 – P.  Retrieval of articles from Lusotopie, a French journal that focuses on Brazilian studies within the context of Portuguese colonization and the lusophone community, is available at http://www.lusotopie.sciencespobordeaux.fr/sommaire.html  - P.

 

The full-text retrieval of books from the classics of Brazilian literature may be read at the site of the National Library of Brazil, the Fundação Biblioteca Nacional (http://www.bn.br/Script/index.asp -- P).  One accesses the catalog of over a thousand entries by clicking on “Digital Library.”  The site is partially navigable in English.  An extraordinary array of historic texts on Brazil may be accessed through the Biblioteca Virtual Nacional of the National Library of Portugal at http://bnd.bn.pt/memorias/historia/historia-lista-obras.html -- P.  It includes a digitized edition of the first history of Brazil (1576).  The full-text library of Spanish-language materials is the Biblioteca Virtaul Cervantes and includes some works on Brazil in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, listed at http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/Buscar.html?texto=brasil&tipoMuestra=materias&idRes=0&PM=0&portal=0 – P.

 

The University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center allows intriguing searches for Brazilian studies.  By entering “Brazil” in its e-books search page, http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-ebooks?specfile=/texts/english/ebooks/ebooks.o2w -- P, one retrieves a curious, and possibly serendipitous, amalgam from dozens of books in English that mention “Brazil.”  A similar search for “Brazil” in netLibrary (http://www.netlibrary.com/ – S) results in several dozen titles of a timely contemporary nature.

 

The most plentiful full-text reference works available are dictionaries for Portuguese.  Nearly a dozen general and almost three dozen specialized dictionaries (including engineering, law, medicine, petroleum – even mountain climbing) are available at yourDictionary / Romance Languages.  (http://www.yourdictionary.com/languages/romance.html#portuguese -- P).  Grammars can be found on the yourDictionary site at http://www.yourdictionary.com/grammars3.html#portuguese.   A site at Harvard University includes both grammars and dictionaries, Department of Romance Languages and Resources / Language Resources (http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~rll/resources/portuguese/language_resources.html).

 

GATEWAYS

A site at Ohio State University Libraries offers a gateway to online reference resources for Brazilian Studies: e-brasref (http://library.osu.edu/sites/latinamerica/OnlineRefLibraryBrazStuds.htm -- P).  It is divided into sections for government and public life, economics and statistics, transportation and communication, nature, language, literature, education, history, and biography, culture, and fine and popular arts.  A sample of some of the full-text resources it accesses include:

 

The Ohio State site also includes an online tutorial/syllabus for the study of Brazilian history and culture History & Culture of Brazil (http://library.osu.edu/sites/latinamerica/indxclas_0_tblcontnts.htm-- P) divided into six parts.  These include an introductory section on methodology; followed by a second section detailing the geographical platform of Brazil; and four sections that chronicle Brazil’s history from the sixteenth to twenty-first centuries, focusing on its ethnic, socio-economic, and political development.  This Brazilian site is part of a larger web resource, LATweb, which also includes sites for Bolivian, Cuban, Dutch Antillean, Ecuadorean, Haitian, and Peruvian studies --  http://library.osu.edu/sites/latinamerica/LATHOME.HTML#SPESERV – P.  Two informative and entertaining ways of accompanying contemporary events in Brazil are brazilink at http://www.brazilink.org/  -- P and brazilmax at http://www.brazilmax.com/  -- P).  A professional perspective on developments in Brazil is provided by the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA) from its site at Vanderbilt University, http://www.brasa.org/ -- P.

Note:  Examples of Ohio State web pages below.

 

The major gateway to web sites for Latin American Studies is that of the Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC  http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/brazil/ -- P) at the University of Texas, Austin.  The section for Brazil consolidates access to hundreds of sites.  It is organized by disciplines, some of which include:  agriculture, architecture, arts, cinema, economics, history, indigenous peoples, law, literature, religion, and sports. 

 

There are two online directories that list Brazilianists, scholars who are specialized in Brazilian Studies.  One is the Harvard Directory of Scholars in Brazilian Studies (http://drclas.fas.harvard.edu/directories/brazil/index.php) and the other is that of the Brazilian Studies Association -- BRASA (http://www.brasa.org/index) at Vanderbilt University.  Both, however, have gatekeepers insofar as they require a password for access.

 

AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS

A guide to online audio-visual materials for the study of Portuguese is included in section four of Public Access (Non-fee) Internet Resources for the Portuguese Language, available at http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-59702004000100017 -- P.  This site also indicates how to access Brazilian radio and television.  Especially important are the educational A-V language aids referenced at the site:

“For language education and teaching, the US Department of Education maintains the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), which maintains the Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics (CLL). Details of its resources are at http://www.cal.org/ericcll/about.html -- P. Of special importance for Portuguese are the resources maintained by CLL on less commonly taught languages, described at http://www.cal.org/ericcll/faqs/rgos/lctl.html -- P. Among the web sites referenced by CLL is iloveLanguages at http://www.ilovelanguages.com/ -- P. It references over 100 web sites related to learning or teaching Portuguese.

Related to CLL resources are those of the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) at the University of Minnesota. Chief among its resources for Portuguese is a site at http://www.carla.umn.edu/lctl/db/ -- P that allows one to search for Portuguese courses, during the regular academic year or in summer sessions, at US colleges and universities; in study abroad programs, in primary and secondary schools, and through distance education opportunities.  Moreover, it also offers a virtual picture album for Portuguese at http://www.carla.umn.edu/lctl/vpa/Portuguese/VPAgrid-1.html -- P as a supplementary teaching resource.”

 

Brazilian newspapers (and magazines) are available from both LANIC at http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/region/news/brazil/ -- P and NewsLink at http://newslink.org/sabra.html -- P.  Brazilian newspapers are not indexed.  However, some leading ones now have archives of past issues.  These include the Folha de São Paulo (from 1994 to present) at http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/arquivos/ -- P; O Globo (Rio de Janeiro, from 1997 to present), http://arquivoglobo.globo.com/ie_index.htm -- P; and the Gazeta Mercantil (Brazilian equivalent to Wall Street Journal) at http://www.gazetamercantil.com.br/en/ -- password access required.

 

Open access to videos about Brazil is available from several sources and in varied manners.  O Globo maintains one of the largest online media centers at http://gmc.globo.com/GMC/0,,2465,00.html – P.  In Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com/ -- P) one can enter a search phrase for a Brazilian topic and then set the results to “video.”  Entering “Rio de Janeiro” results in over 600 video hits.  In both Yahoo and Google (http://www.google.com/ -- P), one can find images by entering a search term related to Brazil and setting it to “images.”  “Rio de Janeiro” in Google or Yahoo retrieves a quarter million images.  

 

Historical photos, manuscripts, and audio recordings are available from the research and documentation center of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, the Centro de Pesquisa e Documentão (CPDOC) at http://www.cpdoc.fgv.br/comum/htm/ -- P (click “navegando na história”).  Extensive links to audio and visual resources for Brazilian history and biography are available on e-brasref at http://library.osu.edu/sites/latinamerica/OnlineRefLibraryBrazStuds.htm#pa0 –- P.  E-brasref also lists numerous sites for studying about or listening to Brazilian popular and classical music at     http://library.osu.edu/sites/latinamerica/OnlineRefLibraryBrazStuds.htm#pa0  -- P.

 

Electronic resources for Brazilian studies originating both in and outside Brazil are almost “amazonic.”  This richness is due not only to the size and importance of the country but also because it has been a leader in Latin America in the development of tele-communications, television, media, electronics, and the computer industry.  Fundamental national interests of market share and regional integration and the country’s allure for international investment capital have stimulated these developments.  Online resources for Brazilian studies, therefore, are as abundant as they are expanding.  The above essay offers a hint of the richness of information and techniques for access that are available.  A Brazilian expression for “getting things done” is having “jeito” (JAY-too, that is, “know-how,” practical “savoir-faire”).  Herewith, therefore, has been a hand up for your jeito in doing Brazilian studies.

  

1) Web Page for e-brasref

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   UnIVERSITY LIBRARIES            In the Service of Learning through Information 

   

     e-bRASref__   Online Library Reference Collection                  
             for Brazilian Studies      e-bRASref__   e-bRASref
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                                                  TO BrazHomepage or LATweb   ¤  April, 2006   ¤   OSU Libraries Catalog
Questions or comments to Prof. Edward A.  "Ted" Riedinger                                                      

Organization of the sections of this page:
  » the present:   public life     culture and landscape     fine and popular arts 
   language, literature, and education     transportation     nature
   » data and statistics:  past and present        » history        » biographies

 

2) Web Page for History & Culture of Brazil

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

    UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES            In the Service of Learning through Information   

  

HISTORY& CULTURE OF BRAZIL
 syllabus     e~tutorial      e~tutorial         syllabus                   

Return to LATweb  ¤  Updated: April 2006 
Questions or Comments to  Prof.  Edward A. "Ted" Riedinger

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________