Person
Lasso de la Vega, Javier (1892-1990)Other forms
Sevilla (España) 1892-06-12 - Madrid (España) 1990
Spanish librarian and documentalist. Civil servant of the Facultative Body of Archivists, Librarians and Archaeologists.
Born in Sevilla in 1892, and was son of Javier Lasso de la Vega Cortezo and of María Jesús Jiménez-Placer Cabral; brother of the teacher Alfonso Lasso de la Vega (1898-1977). Third generation of an illustrious saga of archivists-librarians from Seville, was grandson of the director of the General Archive of Indias Carlos Jiménez-Placer Echevarría (1837-1896); nephew of the archivist Antonio Jiménez-Placer Cabral (1866-1914); and first cousin of the archivist Luis Jiménez-Placer Ciaurriz (1901-1946).
Doctor in Law and in Philosophy and Letters. He was one of the introducers of the modern techniques of documentation in Spain, secretary of the National Library of Spain (BNE) and subsequently, Director of Madrid's Central University Library. He made study visits to the United States, and when he returned he introduced in Spain the new trends in Library Science and the then incipient science of the documentation.
With the start of the Spanish Civil War, he was destined as director of the University Library of Madrid, and in 1938 he was named General Director of Archives and Libraries by the Minister of National Education, Sainz Rodríguez (1897-1986).
After the end of the war, and after being exempted from the purge for having held positions of trust, he applied for reinstatement in the Body.
From the 40s, he taught courses in international organisms of documentation, and started multiple library and documentary services in the business, health and the educational institutions worlds. In 1975 he founded the Association of Friends of the Libraries, which she directed until 1982. He was author of manuals about librarianship like: Cómo utilizar una biblioteca (1935), La biblioteca y el niño (1938), Cómo hacer una tesis doctoral (1975) or Técnicas de investigación y documentación (1980), between others. He is considered one of the neatest and most influential authors in the scientific field of the Spanish 20th Century.
He passed away in Madrid in 1990.
Date of the event: 1936 - 1939
El archivo personal de Javier Lasso de la Vega se conserva en la Biblioteca Histórica Marqués de Valdecilla de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Blanco Domingo, Luis. Una archivera en tiempos convulsos : la actividad de Áurea Javierre en la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Zaragoza durante la Guerra Civil Española (1936-1939). [Versión en línea]. 29 (1), p. 11-39. [https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/RGID/article/view/64548/4564456551442].
Archivo Personal de Javier Lasso de la Vega. Biblioteca Histórica Marqués de Valdecilla