Portal de Periódicos da CAPES: um misto de solução financeira e inovação

Abstract

The Portal de Periódicos da CAPES (a public foundation attached to the Brazilian Ministry of Education) is a digital library for scientific and technical information access. The Portal provides educational, research, planning and development agencies from both public and private sectors in Brazil with access to collections of fulltext journals, databases, patents, monographs and other sources. This paper restores the Portal history through accounts from people directly involved in the project and in its preceding activities. Interview data was complemented by an analysis of institutional documentation. It describes the context that led to the launching of the Portal, which was characterized by two previous government experiences of journals acquisition and the search for a solution to the problem of accessing international journals. It discusses the initial difficulties related to dealing with publishers and part of the academic community who opposed to the electronic media. It shows how infra-structure and acceptance barriers were overcome. It concludes that the Portal is a democratic and irreversible means of accessing scientific and technical information which is improving the quality of Brazilian science.