Jordi Rubió i Balaguer

Jordi Rubió i Balaguer (1887-1982) was a librarian, professor, philologist and historian of Catalan literature.

Life

Jordi Rubió i Balaguer (Barcelona, January 30, 1887 - Barcelona, July 25, 1982), obtained a degree in Philosophy and Letters from the University of Barcelona (1902-1906) and a doctorate from the Central University of Madrid (1907). He played a key role in the definition, creation, organization and management of the library system in Catalonia, as director of the Library of Catalonia, from 1914 to 1939, and as director of the School of Librarianship, from 1930 to 1939.

After the Spanish Civil War, he was removed from his post by the Francoist government and was barred from working in the public administration. He subsequently devoted himself to research and became a leading figure in Catalan historiography. He authored numerous studies on historiography and philology, covering the period from Ramon Llull to the nineteenth century, written in Catalan, Spanish and German.

He maintained a public commitment to democratic principles and to the Catalan language, both of which were subject to repression under the Franco regime. He was President of the Institute of Catalan Studies (1958 – 1970), President of Catalan PEN (1965 – 1968), Honorary Prize for Catalan Literature (1969). He participated in the constituent assembly of the Democratic Union of Students of the University of Barcelona (SDEUB) (1966).

Contributions

He was the first director of the Library of Catalonia from its foundation in 1914 until January 1939. For the organization of the Library Rubió had as a model the UK and North American libraries and applied new library techniques; the Library has to be considered the first modern library in Spain. During the Spanish Civil War, the Library of Catalonia took the role of saving bibliographic collections of communities and individuals (especially ecclesiastics) that were at risk of being plunded or burned.

In 1920, he published the first adaptation of the Universal Decimal Classification and used it for the organization of public libraries and the Library of Catalonia. He adapted it to the needs of the collections of these libraries and made a 2nd edition published in the midst of the civil war.

In 1920, Rubió was commissioned to create and direct the Technical Services of the Network of Public Libraries of Catalonia, which had as its functions the establishment of technical criteria and tools, and providing management support to libraries. Between 1915 and 1939, twenty-one public libraries were created. The model for the library buildings and internal space distribution followed Anglo-American models: The libraries operated as a coordinated network, employed professionally trained staff from the School of Librarianship, had a children's section and the shelves were open access.

During the Spanish Civil War, Rubió extended the library service to the army. The service included a mobile library that supplied books to soldiers in military units and sought to safeguard collections threatened by the war.

Between 1930 and 1939 he was director of the School of Librarians (established in Barcelona in 1915) to train women as professional librarians for the emerging public library network. Rubió had been a professor there since its beginnings, but he and most of the faculty were dismissed during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930). Under Rubió's direction, the School reassumed the line of its first stage, it approached the university studies, carried out exchanges abroad, and a high-level teaching staff was appointed.

Publications

Com s'ordena i cataloga una biblioteca (c. 1917). Barcelona : Consell de Pedagogia de la Diputació de Barcelona.
Classificació decimal de Brussel·les: adaptació per a les biblioteques populars de la Mancomunitat de Catalunya (1920). Barcelona: Imp. Casa de la Caritat
Classificació decimal : nova adaptació catalana (1938). Barcelona : Escola de Bibliotecàries.
Catalogación y ordenación de bibliotecas: instrucciones elementales (1946). Barcelona: WA-L-IMP.
Llibreters i impressors a la Corona d’Aragó: obres completes vol. XI (1994). Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat. ISBN: 84-7826-454-X.
Sobre biblioteques i biblioteconomia: obres completes vol. XII (1995). Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat. ISBN: 84-7826-627-5.

Life

Contributions

Publications

Further reading