Estudo de usuários da informação: necessidades e usos da informação de profissionais de arquivo no contexto do sistema de arquivos da Universidade Federal da Paraíba

Abstract

This is a research that aims to analyze the needs and use of information of the archive professionals who work in the archives of the Teaching Centers of the Campus I of the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), through the use of the Sense-Making approach of Dervin (1983) as theoretical and methodological support. It is characterized as exploratory and descriptive and includes a field research. As for the approach, it resorts to qualitative and quantitative research, and is inserted in the user study area as a prescriptive and proactive type research. The research field is the Central Archive Units of the 13 Teaching Centers of Campus I of UFPB, for which, besides the application of the questionnaire, it was used as an instrument of data collection the semi-structured interview to the archive professionals. For data analysis and interpretation, it was used the content analysis technique of Bardin (2016). In this context, it is observed a scenario of existence of archive units centralized in the Centers and at least one archive professional working, with low recurrence of professionals from other areas and, in some cases, the units do not formally exist at the institutional level. Regarding the information needs related to the performance of their activities and functions, these are related to the duties of the position and the institution in which they work, ranging from more general information, about the federal government and the senior management of the institution, to local information, about the functioning of the Center in which they work, the archive unit and the collection stored at the unit. Regarding the existence of barriers to information in the process of retrieval and dissemination of information, the respondents identify numerous barriers to information (institutional, technical, human resources, structural and psychological) that interfere in their work environments from two perspectives: in the archival activities they perform for the functioning of the unit and in the interaction with external users, who are the public of the information unit. In relation to the sources of information used in their strategies, it is observed that most of the subjects used the Internet, people (usually through dialogue with the hierarchical superior) or consultation of the Institution's computerized systems. It is concluded that information is an edifying and important tool for the daily life of archive professionals and that the barriers to information identified interfere in their work environments under two perspectives: in the archival activities they perform with a view to the functioning of the unit; and in the interaction with external users, who are the public of the information unit. Thus, the research opens the way for the archival units that make up the UFPB's Archive System (SiArq), to position themselves in a more consistent manner to the informational needs of managers and the desires of information users, so that they effectively exercise their function in the organization to which they belong, as in society.