Sources for the Study of Brazilian Economic and Social History on the Internet

In the past dozen years, the Internet has become a major source of information for modern social and economic history. Given the overwhelming abundance of these sources, it is useful for researchers who want to take advantage of these data to have finding guides, in the style of the older guides prepared for individual archives. It is our aim in this first essay to provide such a guide for Internet sources on Brazilian history.

The primary material now available on the Web tends to be of the highest quality. Although much qualitative material produced directly for the Web is of dubious reliability, most of the statistical and graphic materials available were generated by the agencies that gather and produce this material for Brazil and are the same as those available in print. Often, the data provided are more complete than can be obtained in any print-based archive. One potential problem with using Web materials is determining the source of data, in order to judge its quality. International agencies, foreign governments, and NGOs are involved in producing social and economic data on Brazil. Much of this information is usually of the same high quality as that generated by Brazilian government agencies; the data is either generated by these non-Brazilian government agencies or taken directly from the primary Brazilian producing institutions. In some cases, secondary agencies such as the UN's FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization) provide more detailed information than Brazilian governmental sources. But in some cases, as with the World Bank and some other UN agencies, these data may conflict with information produced in Brazil, either because they have used Brazilian data that is out-of-date or rely on their own estimates, which may not be as accurate as the most current governmental statistics. In these cases, we recommend relying on the original Brazilian materials.

It should be stressed that the Brazilian government, at all levels and across its various agencies, maintains these Web sites free or charge to all users, with no need to register, obtain a subscription, or pay a fee. The only exception is the subscriptions gateway maintained by CAPES, intended for Brazilian scholars who need access to subscription pay sites outside Brazil (http://www.periodicos.capes.gov.br). This open access is not the norm for many European and UN Web sites, which often require formal registration and sometimes charge usage fees. I have included this in my descriptions and suggest access through your local university.

In comparison with most other countries, Brazil's research institutes and government agencies both produce excellent quantitative materials and make them available on the Web. Most Brazilian Web sites offer good search functions, a crucial component of any site, and usually make it easy to download materials in either text, PDF, HTML, or spreadsheet formats (from generic CSV to Excel and Lotus). Maps and other graphic materials are becoming ever more abundant, usually provided in standard graphic compression formats (most often as JPEG or GIF files) or imbedded in PDF files. Almost all governmental Web sites also provide excellent links that can be used to expand the search for materials in other national and international agencies and organizations. Some sites offer a complete gateway ("portal" in Portuguese) that leads in a coherent way to subagencies or institutions within a given area.

In providing this guide, we have grouped Web sites into sources that produce the original data and then grouped these and other institutions into broad social and economic categories. In each case we provide the Web site for the institution producing the data. But as anyone who has done Web searches knows, URLs often change or disappear. In these cases we recommend using a search engine such as Google to find the new addresses. Finally, for grammatical reasons, some of the URLs listed below end in...