Políticas de informação ergonômicas voltadas ao trabalhador de arquivos e bibliotecas

Abstract

Working conditions can have a positive or negative impact upon workers’ health. Studies on institutional policies related to work-health issues are fundamental to raise awareness both in the professionals and in the institutions that employ them. This work brings closer the information policies universe and ergonomics, the field of knowledge which uses its theoretical framework to adapt the working environment to the psychophysiological characteristics of working people. The information policies concept arises from the approximation of these two areas, which once defined, begins to be used throughout the text, and whose adoption contributes to promoting the well-being, the comfort, and the workers’ quality of life; which for those reasons, leads us into the following question: how do superior education institutions develop ergonomic information policies to address archives and libraries? Based upon the question that guides this research, this work aims at verifying the implementation of ergonomic information policies in archives and libraries in public superior education institutions in João Pessoa-PB. It is a research that adopts the study between cases of the same kind, with a qualitative approach, beginning with the bibliographic study made in books, articles, graduation monographs, dissertations, news, norms, laws and recommendations. The data collection was done through direct observation in archives and libraries in the institutions, where their Institutional Development Plans (IDP) were analyzed as to the implementation of ergonomic policies and the accomplishment of NR-17 and the flood and fire prevention norms in their archives and libraries. In addition, semi-structured interviews were made with the professionals in the referred places in order to identify which their perceptions were about the ergonomic conditions of their work and if they had any previous knowledge about the theme. Thus, we were able to know whether, in fact, the institutions implemented or not ergonomic policies in their routines. The analysis of the data from the IDP and from the interviews were guided by means of the content analysis suggested by Bardin (2009), and the categories arrayed were defined based on NR-17. The results obtained point at an insufficiency in the ergonomic information policies in the institutions and that situation is reflected on the dissatisfaction and discontentment of some workers in relation to their working conditions, which led us to conclude that it is urgent that the institutions rethink their ergonomic policies in order to adjust their working environment to the workers’ psychophysiological characteristics and permanently institute programs and actions aimed at ergonomics, health and work safety.