The public libraries have been the subject of discussions and government policies around the world, especially in the information age. In Brazil, they were present in the discourse of government policies since the democratization of the country in the end of twentieth century. The analysis of these policies demonstrates that still wasn’t possible to provide the basics: there isn’t yet, at the end of the first decade of the next century, at least one library in each city of the country. The failure of the basic goal can be explained by conceptual questions, directing investments, inconsistencies in the legal guides, distribution of functions between institutional agents, deficiency training of staff for the implementation of policies, also structural and entrenched problems of how to make policy in Brazil, which remains over the governments democratic or dictatorial. The Plano Nacional do Livro e da Leitura, initiated at the end of 2006, presents an innovative discourse which actual implementation, however, is not part of this study.
Public Library; Public policy; Brasil