The University Extension in History through the Preparation of Research Instruments

Abstract

This article is a reflection on the university extension in the course of history through an account of the experience of developing a reference and thematic catalog of documents. This extension action was developed at Universidade Estadual Paulista and featured a team of two graduate students from the course of History. The material used was the correspondence between the captaincies of Brazil and the Overseas Council in Lisbon between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and gathered by the Historical Documentation Project Rescue “Barão do Rio Branco”. From 150,000 documents scanned by Project Rescue were selected 3,096 documents in which the Municipal Camaras of the colonial Brazil were the sender or subject. Then the students related the entry of each of these documents to their location in their digital media, information not provided by digital and printed catalogs that reference these documents. This work resulted in a survey instrument, whose production has contributed to the training of students of history in the craft of research in the area, but also led to the creation of a survey instrument that can be used by historians or extra- -academic community.