LILIAN LOPES MARTIN DA SILVAShe holds a degree in Linguistics from the State University of Campinas (1977), a master's degree in Education from the State University of Campinas (1981), and a doctorate in Education from the State University of Campinas (1994). She is currently a collaborating professor (MS-5) at the Faculty of Education of the State University of Campinas, within the Research Group 'Literacy, reading, writing and teaching work in initial teacher training?' (ALLE/AULA). She has experience in the field of Education, with an emphasis on Education, working mainly on the following themes: education, reading, teacher training, and the teaching of Portuguese.
April's Theme – Reading as a tool for emancipation: Critical thinking and the political role of reading, libraries as spaces to support education, educational strategies for promoting reading.
Interviewer: What is the title or topic of your research?
Lilian: ALB: Memories is the title of our research. It is one of the research areas of ALLE/AULA, one of the research groups at FE. It utilizes the collections of the Brazilian Reading Congresses (COLE) and the Brazilian Reading Association (ALB), both donated to the Center for Educational Memory (CME).
Q: Are you conducting individual or team research? Who is participating?
L: It has always been built collectively and collaboratively by undergraduate and graduate students. It is coordinated by myself and Professor Luciane Moreira de Oliveira.
E: When did the research begin and what is the expected completion date/when was it...
Finished?
L: It began in 2009, when I was also serving as treasurer of the Brazilian Reading Association (ALB), through a final project for my Pedagogy degree. At that time, we gathered everything that was at the ALB headquarters that pertained to the Brazilian Reading Congresses (COLE), one of its main activities throughout the 40 years that the organization was active. The final project is...
available in: https://repositorio.unicamp.br/Acervo/Detalhe/474638.
The first step in this research was then carried out. This involved locating, selecting, and compiling materials related to the Coles conferences, and digitizing the abstracts and proceedings of the first 11 events, which previously only existed in print. This allowed us to investigate the presence of the student's area of interest within this material, bringing it to the forefront for description and problematization.
Another need that triggered the research was to prepare for the celebrations related to the 30th anniversary of the Brazilian Reading Association with the creation of a blog, ALB: 30 Years, available at: https://alb30anos.blogspot.com/.
We worked with scholarship recipients and successive classes in the Scientific Initiation in Education course, continuing this research path through other operations such as: surveying, identifying, and converting sound recordings; piecing together archives/documents; gathering photographic records; transcribing sound files; and research in the permanent archive.
from FE/Unicamp; research at the Campinas Public Library and on the Web. Details of the route can be accessed at: https://www.alleaula.fe.unicamp.br/grupos-de-pesquisas/pesquisa-alb-memorias/percurso-de-pesquisa.
After being housed and organized at the ALLE/AULA facilities, this collection was officially donated to the Center for Educational Memory in November 2017. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwQikGkHnE
Q: What is the expected completion date?:
L: The research continues with no defined end date. With the closure of ALB's activities in November 2023, the CME received a donation of the Brazilian Reading Association's documentary collection.
(ALB), after a rigorous survey, organization and cleaning of the material. The donation took place in November 2025 and was marked by a round table discussion on “Memories, stories and legacy.” Currently, the CME team is working with this material, giving it the appropriate treatment for its preservation, cataloging and research.
Q: Does the research have any funding? What is it?
L: Throughout all these years, we have been able to count on small grants from Faepex, intended for the organization of publications, the payment of specific services, and support for scholarship holders and interns. We have also had occasional financial collaboration from ALB and funding agencies (Capes, CNPq) to subsidize conferences and research grants.
E: Is this research linked to any graduate program or group?
research?
L: Yes, it's linked to the Postgraduate Program at Fe, in the Research Line Language and Art in Education, and I'm also part of the ALLE-AULA Research Group.
Q: What is the central objective of the investigation?
L: The main objective of the ALB Research: Memories project is, in addition to safeguarding, properly processing, and making available the entity's documentation, to research the vast and diverse documentary collection materialized in multiple devices and formats. These documents carry a discursive fabric in which voices and positions that, over the last 40 years, have become a reference point for thought regarding reading, circulating in many different spheres of communication, are articulated. With this, the research aims to contribute to a history of reading in our country.
E: What methodology was used?
L: The research work has been built through successive approaches to the documents in the collection, in order to understand them in their specificities and historicity. The research operations are defined jointly by the researcher and the object of research, requiring various tools and multiple paths. These are processes where learning and doing are neither hierarchical nor mutually exclusive.
E: When did the need to investigate this topic arise?
L: Research into the Brazilian Reading Congresses began in 2009, when I, in addition to being a professor at FE, served on the Board of Directors of the Brazilian Reading Association (ALB). In 2023, with the closure of ALB's activities, we took on the task of organizing its documentation for donation to the Center for Educational Memory, which occurred at the end of 2025.
E: How does this research relate to the current challenges in education in Brazil?
L: The transfer of the ALB/COLE documentation to the Memory Center and all the work done with the collection – from its cleaning, organization, and cataloging, as well as the research that explored it – aligns with the current movement linked to the preservation of memory. In the case of this collection, it can be said that it certainly contributes to addressing the numerous challenges that Brazil still faces with regard to reading, writing, and democratization.
Q: Which authors or theories were most influential in shaping your work?
L: Among the theoretical references we have used, we highlight Roger Chartier, Michel de Certeau, Mikhail Bakhtin, Robert Darton, as well as Pierre Nora and Le Goff, including national authors on the history of reading in Brazil.
Q: What have been the main findings so far?
L: The academic work carried out so far has brought to light reflections, developed over these 40 years, on different themes and aspects of reading in Brazil. These works – undergraduate theses, master's dissertations, doctoral theses, scientific initiation reports, catalogs, exhibitions – record discussions and present elements related to the history of ALB and COLEs, as well as the intellectual production on the issue of reading in different approaches, spaces, and formats.
Q: Has the research already resulted in any publications or presentations at events? If so,
Where?
L: By consulting the research website under the "Productions and Publications" tab, you can access the complete set of productions already carried out, and each one can be accessed via the following link: https://www.alleaula.fe.unicamp.br/grupos-de-pesquisas/pesquisa-alb-memorias/producoes-e-publicacoes.
Q: What are the next steps after completion? Are there any planned developments?
L: We currently have an initial research operation underway, awaiting the appointment of a scholarship recipient following the submission of a project: the construction of a repository for research production and documentation in an institutional virtual space, based on the sorting and transfer of the work's files; This year, we also mobilized, along with other members of ALLE AULA, to support the 24th COLE, carrying out curatorial and/or consulting work.
Professor Lilian Lopes Martin da Silva and Professor Luciane Moreira de Oliveira – Research Coordinators ALB: MEMORIES
SPEAKING OF RESEARCH!
Topic: Reading as a Tool for Emancipation
Interview conducted on: 23/04/2026
Posted in: 30/04/2026
Researcher Interviewed: Lilian Lopes Martin da Silva
Interviewer: Julia Santiago Carrion
Screenplay: Erika Blaudt and Lucas Ferreira
Executive production: Lucas Ferreira, Cláudia Reis and Julia Santiago Carrion
Direction: Nora Rut Krawczyk
Presented by: CPDC – FE – Unicamp