en Cuba Olinta Ariosa Morales: Precursor of Librarianship and Libraries in Cuba

Abstract

Olinta Ariosa Morales constitutes a relevant personality in the Cuban library field. She had extensive work at the head of various responsibilities that shaped the structure of contemporary Cuban librarianship. In the absence of research devoted to personality, the objective was to establish the contributions made to Cuban librarianship by Ph D. Olinta Ariosa Morales. The research classified as historical and is developed from a qualitative perspective. The biographical method was selected for its implementation. To obtain results, methods were used at the theoretical and empirical levels, fundamentally life history. She highlighted the use of the in-depth interview technique, which was applied to colleagues, family members and students of Olinta's life. The main conclusions are that once Olinta graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy and Letters, she worked as a librarian assistant at the Universidad Central "Marta Abreu" de Las Villas. Between the years 1959 - 1999 Olinta worked as a librarian and director in various institutions, among which her appointment as director of the "José Martí" National Library of Cuba stands out. She was the first president of the board of directors of the Cuban Association of Librarians. In honor of all his work in the field of librarianship, it was established in Cuba on April 14, as the Day of the School Librarian in honor of the birth of Olinta and in 2004 the "Olinta Ariosa Morales National Award" was created to recognize librarians schoolchildren.