the establishment of the Biblioteca Euclides da Cunha was first initiated by Gustavo Capanema, the minister of Education and Public Health from 1934, who was a man of humanistic spirit and vision - he worked to construct the idea of the 'Ministério do Homem' (Ministry of Man), in order to 'prepare, form and perfect man'.

In 1937, he decreed the creation of a new administrative building, which would host within it a library. This library was inaugurated in 1945 and went on to be called Biblioteca Euclides da Cunha (BEC), named after the Brazilian journalist, sociologist and engineer, who lived between 1866 and 1909.