Atuação bibliotecária no tratamento temático da informação em unidades informacionais: um estudo comparativo qualitativo-quantitativo

Abstract

Considering the importance of information and knowledge socialization in the present day context and the essentiality of the production of knowledge for producing science, access to quality and reliable information remains crucial. The field of Knowledge Organization and Representation (KOR) of Information Science offers the theoretical-practical approach available for the production, processing and retrieval of information and knowledge in the society, considering the treatment of information as a complementary linkage between the production and the very use of information. The main purpose of the present exploratory-descriptive qualitative-quantitative and theoretical-practical study was conduct a research of library functions in the thematic treatment of information in the retrieval systems of information units through subject cataloging in online collective catalog, with focus on subject analysis. In the design of the study, the following specific objectives were set: a) to investigate the process of subject cataloguing in online collective catalogs as well as the process of indexing in databases; b) to evaluate the documentary indexing in the context of information retrieval systems of university libraries; 3) to discuss the practice of subject cataloguing and the indexing process in order to improve professional practice in the thematic treatment of information in the context of university libraries. First, the study offers some theoretical perspectives for the dialogue between the fields of Science, Technology and Society (STS) and the field of Information Science (IC), in view of the area of Knowledge Organization and Representation (KOR). Second, it presents the elements of science and technology policy in university libraries and the retrieval systems of units of information, especially the university libraries online collective catalogs and the databases of specialized scientific areas. Finally, it presents the information subject treatment (IST) in the domain of Information Science, considering the importance of this process in information retrieval for users and researchers from the academic context. After reviewing the literature, the Verbal Protocol (VP) analysis in the modality of Individual Verbal Protocol (IVP) was used as a qualitative method for collecting data from the librarians who work in information retrieval systems in Health, to observe the cognitive processes of documental analysis (document type: Doctoral thesis) in the subject cataloguing in the online collective catalog DEDALUS (USP) and to perform the indexing process in LILACS database (BIREME). Additionally, indexing evaluation (IE) was used as a quantitative method to measure and to evaluate the intrinsic/extrinsic aspects of the indexing process, in the modality the Intra-indexer consistency or Intralibrarian taking into account the lack of verticalized studies that use this method. The sample of the study comprised three public university libraries from the University of São Paulo: Library of the School of Dentistry, Library of the School of Public Health and Library of the Institute of Psychology 5 subjects (2 catalogers, 2 indexers and 1 cataloger-indexer) were studied. The results indicated low rates of intraconsistency between the processes of subject cataloguing and subject indexing in the libraries, however, in the average reported in the literature. The conclusion of the study highlights the importance of considering interdisciplinarity in scientific, technological and social fields between the two scientific spheres, in view of the complexity of information flow and knowledge in society.