The first session of Conversations with Books was held on 15 December 2011 in the atrium of the Egas Moniz Building. This was a Library-IDC initiative that had as its fundamental objective the dissemination of its bibliographic patrimony, in addition to bringing the FMUL community closer together.

The guest speaker of this first session was Pedro de Azevedo, a bookseller specializing in antique books who has maintained a close relationship with the Library-IDC for some years, which has already enabled the evaluation of its collection of antique books, as well as a deeper understanding of the rare works that make up this collection (provenance, history, rarity, importance for medical education, etc.).

At the musical moment that opened the session, a choir of four FMUL students (Inês Duro, Maria Guilhermina Pereira, Afonso Ferreira, and Mikael Bartikian) sang two songs alluding to Christmas and provided the appropriate mood for a lively event in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.

The session was held as one guided tour, using various examples from the books brought in for that purpose and from others displayed in the Bibliographic Exhibition commemorating five centuries of the birth of Amato Lusitano (1511-2011), which was shown in the atrium of the Egas Moniz Building where the session was held. There was opportunity to ask questions and, indeed, to hold conversations with books. Issues related to the preservation and conservation of these books, among others, were discussed.

Thanks to funding from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Library-IDC has been able to restore some works from its antique book collection and start building its Digital Collections, , which now have 16 titles and include some whose scanning was requested by users. Without this support, this task would have proved unattainable.

 

André Rodrigues P. Silva
Editorial Team
Library -IDC
andresilva@fm.ul.pt