When I was younger and entered the Republican Museum of Itu, I paid little attention to the exhibits. Of course, I still remember some of the pieces that were on display during that period, such as the litters and instruments for the torture of enslaved people, which was truly scary. But what struck me most was the mansion itself: the facade, covered in Portuguese tiles; the wrought-iron railings, all of them ornate; and the numerous, symmetrical windows.

In this 19th-century townhouse, where the Republican Convention of Itu took place in 1873, the feeling was that the architecture itself told its story. The interior had period furniture, with medallion-style chairs, crystal chandeliers, and original wallpaper. The old doors were difficult to open. And, when we were on the ground floor, we could hear every step of whoever was walking upstairs due to the creaking of the floorboards. 

I've been a frequent visitor to the space since I was 13 years old; in other words, my relationship with the Museum didn't start with the collection. In 1988, I put together a newspaper with my school class, presented the initiative to the institution's staff, and they believed the publication could have a wider reach. 

They were two eight-page notebooks with news about the main events in Itu: from interviews with mayoral candidates to the famous message board for friends and lovers. For them to be published, people would personally go to the museum and deposit their messages in a ballot box.

Before this partnership, we used typewriters and a mimeograph machine for copies, but the Museum made the process easier by lending us their only computer. We shared the page content with the staff, who typed it and then printed the original on a dot-matrix printer for us to photocopy and distribute throughout the city. 

He would go in and out to produce the newspaper, and the tiles in the entrance hall, with panels depicting episodes from Itu's history, became increasingly familiar. The set of portraits of the Republican Convention delegates – all created according to the same guidelines, regardless of which artist signed the work – also became imprinted in my memory.

At the same time, because the Republican Museum is an established space in the city, I confess that I didn't reflect much on the meaning of everything I saw, nor on the functioning of the space. I only realized that the institution was one of the campuses of the Paulista Museum, alongside the Ipiranga Museum, when I passed the public examination and became a documentation and information technician.  

I was 32 years old when I joined the library, where I remain to this day.

My first task was to find the physical copies of a list with approximately three hundred books about coffee, as we had just received the donation of Professor Edgard Carone's collection. It took several months of looking at the spine and interior of each one – and his collection had over 26,000 volumes. 

During that period, the Republican Museum held seminars on the history of coffee and sugar. Every year, researchers came from the United States, Colombia, Belgium, Cuba, and Argentina, and I attended to all of them. I was mesmerized because I wasn't used to this public university environment, where I could exchange knowledge with people from all over the world. 

I grew up in a home where books were gifts, as my mother was a primary school teacher and my grandmother worked with magazine binding. I always consulted everything – comics, newspapers, encyclopedias – but since I started working at the Museum, my relationship with publications has changed. 

I started to be enchanted by the illustrations I saw on the covers, by the different types of bindings and papers, and even by the time each of those books represented. The smell of the pages, the aged edges, the creases, and the marks of use. 

Everything fascinated me.

Right at the beginning of my journey, I also started reading some texts by Edgard Carone. As the Study Center, where the library is currently located in a house near the Museum, was ceded to USP to receive his collection, I wanted to learn more about his life and work.

It was a study that taught me immensely. Marxism in Brazil, authored by him, for example, is the result of years of work and contextualizes the beginning of this movement in the country. The book also references the main publications on the subject since the early 20th century, and almost all of them are part of the library that Carone left us, because he was the kind of person who enjoyed browsing shelves and discovering rare items. 

A true bibliophile, a lover of books, which is how I see myself as well.

What I really enjoy is walking through the library aisles and browsing its shelves. My greatest pleasure is discovering a hidden book, and dwelling on its details, from the edition to the footnotes.

Although I never met Professor Carone personally, I imagine it was similar, because his students say that he allowed access to the books he kept in his apartment, with the idea that everyone could research and handle the works. That's why I'm still surprised when I receive a researcher who responds “I'll look at it later” when I give them the chance to see what isn't yet cataloged. I just keep thinking: “How can someone in the field of History not be interested in seeing a shelf of rare books?”.

It was in this way, organizing the works on the shelves, that I ended up finding the theme for my master's degree: the Flama Publishing House. 

I started noticing that, among the large publishing groups – like Nacional, Brasiliense, and Civilização Brasileira – there were many smaller ones, but with extremely significant works. And in this research, I came across the collection “Thought and Action,” from Flama, which dealt mainly with political economy and socialism. Through this series, I began to realize the importance of this small imprint that almost no one had heard of.

During this journey, I visited several libraries at USP and Unicamp, and I loved when I could go in myself to select the material. In some institutions, this doesn't happen. The librarian separates the requests and only delivers what you asked for through the system. It's not the same as looking at the spines yourself, because in that process, something always appears that wasn't on your radar. 

I realize that the experience I had exploring other libraries also impacted the work I'm doing, because I started to see books in a different way. When it comes to cataloging, I make a point of documenting everything: from the dimensions to the existence of dedications and marginalia, which are the highlights, notes, and scribbles that appear on the pages. Some people don't attach importance to this, thinking it will slow down the process. But even if that information might seem insignificant, it's often precisely what the researcher is looking for. 

It's what researchers talk about regarding librarians being on the other side of the counter. There's the idea that there's just a service-provider there, without deep knowledge of the material they make available. It's a mistaken view that I refute, mainly because I have the perspective of a researcher and one of my functions is precisely to guide research. 

The privilege of knowing the collection is what allows us to recommend sources that go beyond what that person has selected. 

“You asked for this book, but there's another one that might be relevant. Do you want to see it?”

These were things I didn't know before, but today I am sure that I also contribute to the reflection of other academics. One day, in fact, I helped a researcher who was studying the 1932 Revolution and we started talking about my research in relation to the 1940s, because, despite the difference in dates, the context was the same. 

As soon as I arrived at the Museum and started to familiarize myself with the seminars, I stayed in the library, which served as a support point for guests. It was only occasionally, when I spoke with a colleague, that I could hear the talks.

At the time, I could never have imagined that I would one day be part of the conference table, contributing to the discussions. In 2024, at the book launch Republican Museum “Convention of Itu”: 100 Years in 100 Objects, for example, I took on the role of mediator of the conversation. And, a year earlier, when Carone's centennial was celebrated and we held an exhibition about him, I joined the curatorial group. All of this thanks to my commitment and dedication in caring for the archive.

The exhibition occupied the display cases in the hallway of the Study Center, and one of them was dedicated exclusively to the memoirs he wrote – a part of the collection that was not cataloged and that others only became aware of due to my experience. 

Years ago, on a trip to Argentina, I made sure to visit centers of knowledge production, such as museums and universities. It was incredible to be in a country where you see people reading all the time, with bookstores and secondhand shops spread everywhere.

I visited several of these places and learned, through books, much more than just Latin America. It was a continuation of a journey that began early, at the Republican Museum.

After so many transformations, I feel that my story is divided into two periods: before and after the Museum. It was there that my perspective broadened and that, little by little, I became someone more aware of the world. In my youth, my repertoire was still limited, and this was reflected in my relationships. Currently, I recognize the value of these exchanges and consciously seek to deepen each experience and learning.