Informational bookfair culture: experiences about the Rio de Janeiro bookfairs

Abstract

Introduction: it is considered the universe of book fairs as spaces that provide not only the democratization and encouragement of books and reading, but also informational practices through human and technological appropriation and mediation of knowledge, resulting in an information culture at the locus of the bookfairs. Objective: to analyze the relation between symbolic occupation and circulation and appropriation of knowledge from two bookfairs in Rio de Janeiro: Primavera dos Livros, promoted by the Liga Brasileira de Editoras (LIBRE) and the bookfairs of the Associação Brasileira do Livro (ABL).  Methodology: intervention, in the years of 2014 and 2015, on the two fairs mentioned, based on the contributions of the ethnographic method. It attempted to observe the practices and informational exchanges that took place on the show floor, emphasizing the human and technological mediations experienced by its objects and actors.  Result: the occupation of the space afforded by book fairs is given in symbolic form, as it provides a list of individuals with structured objects in the fair locus. It became possible to its visitors assign a network of meanings to the elements and characteristics of space, and the book and the show, for example, objects symbolic appropriation of knowledge for the members of that bookfairs culture. Conclusion: the bookfairs act as a new production environment, organization and dissemination of knowledge, different from those experienced in archives, museums and libraries, since the knowledge and information mediation occur differently to the traditional way.