Creation of an archive on History of Psychological Knowledge and Psychology in Brazil: classification and organization of a personal archive

Abstract

This research note presents a model of creation and availability of an archive of documents in the History of Psychology and Psychological Knowledge in Brazil, from the organization and classification of the personnel file of Marina Massimi, professor and researcher in this area. The purpose of this work was to facilitate the access of researchers, students and the researcher herself to the information in this document collection. We attempted to sort these historical documents in a practical and simple way to provide continuity of organization, since it is an active archive. Because Massimi studies the History of Psychology and Psychological History of Knowledge in the Brazilian culture, her archive is a vast document collection constituted over her research activities conducted in archives in Brazil and abroad, among which we can mention the Vatican libraries, Casanatense, Ambrosiana; Library of Milan; the General Library of the University of Coimbra, Porto, Braga and Lisbon; Ancient Libraries of the Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Law in São Paulo; the National Library, the Library of Colégio Pedro II in Rio de Janeiro; the Library of the House of Bishops of Mariana and other collections from Minas Gerais State, etc. The collection contains rare and significant documentary sources for the areas mentioned that include correspondences, sermons, treaties, catalogs, indipetae letters, etc. As this is a work in progress, this article is limited to the description of the organization of the first group of documents of this collection: the textual documents.

Keywords: archives, history of psychology, historical documents.