Digitization Campaign of Rare Catholic Works 

Presentation Letter

The Digitization Campaign of Rare Catholic Works began in August 2009, having as its immediate goals the preservation and dissemination of important books that, for various reasons, have no longer been published for some years in Brazil and even abroad. The collection to be digitized is largely composed of consultation manuals, encyclopedias, among others, that deal with a range of topics related to Philosophy, Theology, Apologetics and Catholic Catechesis, as well as church history (the works are mostly written in Portuguese, French, English and Spanish). As you will see, we chose to keep the focus on this kind of work not including, therefore, classics from other genres of Catholic literature.

Featuring a large collection of rare Catholic works, our campaign aims to bring to the largest possible number of readers, completely at no cost, the most authentic Catholic literature, therefore, having no lucrative purpose at all. With this, the Obras Católicas website is committed to prevent, to the extent of its capabilities, that a large and valuable intellectual heritage is forgotten forever, as a result of the lack of interest of some of our major publishers to make it known and appreciated these works of rising value. It is worth emphasizing, however, that such works do not appear in our catalog simply because of their age or because their editions are exhausted. Indeed, a small portion of these titles may still, not without some difficulty, be found in some bookstores abroad. We propose, rather, to digitize works that are not only rare but also known for its orthodoxy or, in the case of non-theological matters, they are not contrary to the doctrine of the Sacred Magisterium taught over the centuries. Therefore, we see that one of our most indisputable purposes is to form a digital library that has as a mark the Catholic doctrinal rectitude.

At this point, it is necessary to clarify that our target audience is not exclusively Catholic. People of all religions can contribute to the campaign, and have access to the content of the site obrascatolicas.com. Similarly, we hope that users from all over the world access our site, at the same time, we intend to employ efforts so that, more and more, we can provide written works on a wider variety of languages.

For all this, as it can already be seen, in order to ensure the success of our initiative, we would also like to count with the cooperation of all readers. Certainly, a campaign of such size, due to the amount of financial resources it demands, could not be carried out without the cooperation of those interested. There are no less than 162 books, which to be available on-line must first be photocopied, scanned by a professional scanner page by page through a document feeder, and finally made available using the appropriate software. Hence, precisely because of the large number of works that we want to digitize, and the few resources we have, the campaign should proceed in stages, so that a new phase is started only after obtaining the necessary financial resources and the consequent digitization and publication (online) of the titles selected for the previous one.

In general, the resources needed to implement the campaign, paying only for the cost of the photocopy at  R$ 0.10 per page, would total up to $ 4725.00[1], should be obtained through donations made by our supporters, after properly registering through our Formulário de Inscrição followed by a Login to receive news about the campaign via email. In order to send the donation, subscribers will receive an email containing all information necessary to submit the payment. The initial established amount will be R$ 20.00 per person, with the open possibility of larger donations, according to the generosity of the donor. Weekly, we will post in the Obras Católicas site the amount collected to date, so that our supporters can follow the development of each stage of the campaign. Whenever possible, we will publish on the website the amount collected so far and the goals that we've met, so that our supporters can follow the development of each stage of the campaign.

It is therefore counting on your cooperation, dear reader, that we continue with our Digitization Campaign of Rare Catholic Works.

May the Blessed Virgin Mary guide us and enlighten this project which is all offered to the greatest honor and glory of Her Divine Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Brejo Santo, CE, 3 de Dezembro de 2009.

Thales do Nascimento Saraiva
Editor

Eduardo da Silva Gomes
Campaign Administrator

Paulo Renato Ghetti Frade
Webmaster  and Digitizer

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Note:

[1] The total refers to the cost of 162 works from the current catalog.