Conformação dos estudos de usuários nos currículos dos cursos de graduação em Biblioteconomia no Brasil: perspectivas tradicional, alternativa e sociocultural

Abstract

By investigating users' needs and information-seeking and use behavior, as well as the evolution of this behavior in line with changes in society over time, User Studies is a fundamentally important subject in Library Science training, since it is an eminently social area. This research report analyzes how the subject of user studies is configured in the curricula of undergraduate library science courses in Brazil. To this end, it analyzes the contents recorded in the teaching plans, the most common authors and types of works, as well as the basic and complementary references indicated. The research is bibliographical, descriptive and documental, with a quantitative and qualitative methodological approach. It shows that of the 33 courses identified, 27 have the subject in their curricula. The analysis of the teaching plans, centered on 16 plans, shows that there is diversity in the nomenclature of the subject, indicating a certain dispersion in the designation, but the content surrounds themes such as information user/informational subject, needs, search and use of information, satisfaction. It found that some of the content still appears timidly in the teaching plans, such as the topics of usability and user satisfaction. The results also show that Brazilian authors are the most common in the syllabuses, along with basic and complementary references from articles and books as the most prominent sources. This demonstrates the consolidation and evolution of User Studies, as well as its contributions to Librarianship, Information Science and related areas, by investigating the information behavior of the most diverse types of users, marked by social and technological evolution; therefore, the subject contributes to qualified, innovative training that promotes user autonomy.