Bernardo A. Houssay Library

The Bernardo A. Houssay Library is a thriving nodal point for the exchange of knowledge, where curiosity, collaboration, and social gatherings of the Institute’s community are encouraged, science is disseminated; communication and training events are held as well as networking meetings organized by IBYME or other academic and scientific institutions.

Our efforts are motivated and empowered by tradition, collaborative work, and the defense of open access and the integration of diversity.

Mission
The Bernardo A. Houssay Library’s mission is to be instrumental in building scientific knowledge, preservation, and dissemination.

To achieve this, it has the following objectives:

  • Facilitate access to scientific information to meet the needs of IBYME’s researchers, professionals, and technicians, in a timely and effective manner, seeking to establish internal cooperative relationships with other institutions.
  • Design and offer research support services.
  • Support the dissemination of knowledge by adapting its services to the needs of IBYME’s community, making spaces and services available for courses, conferences, thesis presentations, interviews, conferences, seminars, and academic events to cater for the training and continuing education needs of our community.
  • Preserve and disseminate the intellectual production of IBYME. For this, it gathers and preserves part of the IBYME’s historical heritage and digitizes, describes, and makes the work of Dr. Bernardo A. Houssay available to the public through programs such as “Notables de la Ciencia” (Outstanding Scientists). It carries out the curatorship of records for the preservation, dissemination, and visibility of written scientific production through the Conicet Digital institutional repository. Train highly skilled human resources.

Vision:
Be a key and dynamic factor in supporting research and knowledge management.

The Library was created together with the Institute in 1944. Initially, its funds were made up of books and magazines donated by the first members of the Institute and foreign researchers. The collection received a substantial boost when the “ Committee on Houssay Journal Fund,” an initiative promoted by doctors CJ Wiggers, WB Cannon, JF Fulton, and HM Evans, motivated by a letter requesting help from Dr. Chistiane Dosne Pascqualini, Dr. Houssay’s fellow.

Bernardo Houssay considered the library one of the fundamental cornerstones in developing research; his constant concern is to keep it modern and up-to-date. The different initiatives implemented achieved that due to the richness of its bibliographic collections: it is worth pointing out that it has been considered a reference center at the national level.

The arrival of the Internet and electronic publications generated a change in the conception of library services, thus incorporating the subscription of online magazines such as the Mincyt Electronic Library, among others.

In 2012, a new library building was inaugurated in IBYME. Thanks to the generosity of its donors, information services and technological infrastructure have been updated. In 2013, entry by electronic card was adopted, allowing researchers and fellows access without time restrictions.

Since 2015, we have supported open access trends in the Federal Library Network, which feeds the CONICET Digital Institutional Repository, registering, curating, publishing, and making available to society the written intellectual production of IBYME’s researchers.

In 2019, we began to retrieve material for the historical archive and integrate it into the National Historical Documentation System.

Although the pandemic that began in 2020 hindered in-person services, remote attention continued from the library, and progress was made in the “Notables de la Ciencia” inter-institutional project, centered on the figure of Bernardo A. Houssay, founder of IBYME, in whose tribute our library bears his name.

Library Commission:

It is in charge of defining the guidelines for the Library, establishing policies, and evaluating their development. It meets monthly or more frequently, depending on the agenda. It is made up of three researchers and a librarian.

Dra. Norma Alejandra Chasseing
Dra. Isabel Lüthy
Dra. Patricia Saragüeta
Librarian Gabriela Diessler

Library Manager:
Librarian Gabriela Diessler

Collaborators:
Ms. María Sol Peralta Diessler
Assistant Librarian Marcela Bertorini
Tech. Daniel Nieva

The current space of the library, inaugurated in 2012, was designed by the Architect Fabiola Lanari and has a surface area of 360 sq.m. It is distributed on three levels, with accessible, flexible, and integrating facilities, internet (fixed access and Wi-Fi), and air conditioning equipment, and it complies with safety regulations.

Reading room
It has 32 reading posts (individual islands, tables for groups, counters) equipped with ergonomic chairs, natural lighting, and available and punctual light sources.


Collections
Located in the basement, it preserves the paper collections of magazines, theses, and books. They are arranged in classic wooden shelves and modern sliding modules for space optimization.

The facilities keep temperature, light, and humidity levels suitable for exemplary material conservation.
The space has one of the pieces from the permanent installation Houssay’s Light, made with furniture used by Dr. Bernardo Houssay in the first headquarters of the Institute.


Reference Sector
Located next to the reading room, it provides orientation and information services.

Hybrid classroom Virgilio Foglia
The room has a capacity for 35 attendees, with the possibility of increasing it to 85 by extending over the reading room using sliding panels. It has the equipment for multimedia presentations and virtual or hybrid meetings (virtual/in-person).


Historical archive: IBYME Fund
Digitizing the documentation and making it available to everyone is essential to create the necessary conditions for the regeneration of culture, and in our case, of the scientific and organizational culture of the Institute.

The work required to treat this material is proportional to the wealth it represents as a patrimonial asset for our Institute and society. For this reason, we have the expert advice of the General Archive of the Nation, and since 2019 we have been part of the National System of Historical Documentation.


Houssay Light
The artistic installation carried out by Dra. Patricia Saragüeta and Dr. Martín Bonadeo in homage to Dr. Bernardo Houssay is a structural part of our library. For more information: https://luzdehoussay.wordpress.com/

Eduardo H. Charreau Section

This Section gathers the books that Dr. Charreau kept in his IBYME office and that were donated by his wife Ana Rosa to the Bernardo A. Houssay Library.
More than 100 books, brochures and offprints were selected and catalogued. From the title and subtitle fields, the highest occurrence of words obtained corresponded to the terms: Science, Technology; Argentina; National, Development; Research, University, Innovation, Policy, Plan, which determine the orientation of this Collection.
The approach to these books allows us to enrich the biographical narrative about Eduardo Charreau, giving an idea of the areas of knowledge he covered and his interests, to understand the events, influences and trends that surrounded him and to which he had to respond, in his directorship of IBYME (1993-2010), and his presidency of CONICET (2002-2008).
Making available the books that belonged to Dr Charreau is a way of sharing his reading and hobbies and transmitting his commitment to science.
This catalogue was produced by the Library and its collaborators, on the occasion of the Homage to Dr. Eduardo Charreau, at IBYME, May 2023.

Services

For internal users

  • Information literacy
  • Support for academic training
  • Research support
  • Information search

For external users

  • Search for scientific information
  • Provision of documents from the collection of our Library

Information resources

The library preserves a rich documentary collection from the beginning of the founding of the Institute. It comprises the institutional memories, the IBYME works, theses finished at the Institute, books, magazines of Argentine scientific societies, and international publications, among other materials.

Disciples of Bernardo Houssay, such as Dr. Virgilio Foglia and Dr. Eduardo Charreau, have bequeathed publications and books to the library.

Gallery

Contact

External users
If you want to visit, we would appreciate your requesting an appointment in advance to provide a better service.

Librarian Gabriela Diessler

Address
Vuelta de Obligado 2490
(1428) CABA. Argentina

Telephone number
+54 11 4783-2869