Context of Building an Enclosure for Memory

Abstract

In January 1979, the then rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Guillermo Soberón, announced the program of celebrations in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the university autonomy. Each month of that year a celebration event took place, culminating in December with the inauguration of the Biblioteca Nacional and the Hemeroteca Nacional de México [National Library and the National Newspaper and Periodicals Library of Mexico] building. The context in which this happened will allow us to observe how the influence of political and economic events and the power networks of the 1970s promoted and guided a social spending policy that favored the construction of educational and cultural infrastructure, which made possible the construction of the University Cultural Center. Within this project, the building of the Bibliographic Unit was considered, which would provide the conditions to install the National Newspaper and Periodical Library and National Library of Mexico, on the threshold of the modern library. 

By itself, the inauguration event was a significant event for the librarian community, but addressing the political context highlights the fact that building infrastructure to preserve historical memory does not respond exclusively to the need for its conservation and dissemination, although in this case and in the end, it resulted in the improvement of the preservation conditions for the most important historical bibliographic heritage of Mexico. This contribution aims toward a reflective genealogy about librarian institutions, far from being perceived like solemn monuments to knowledge, in order to discover the conditions that gave birth to these and explain the reason of their presence and permanence through time.