EDUCAÇÃO EM INFORMAÇÃO

RESSIGNIFICANDO AS BIBLIOTECAS MULTINÍVEIS

Abstract

With the creation of the Federal Network of Professional, Scientific, and Technological Education (RFEPCT) in Brazil in 1909, professional education became one of the alternatives for training the workforce and ensuring the survival of the working classes and their children, considered socially vulnerable—mostly indigenous youth and enslaved people—who sought to enter the job market (Ministry of Education, 2010). It was in this context that the RFEPCT libraries were established, with characteristics of a school library, serving only secondary-level technical courses.

In 2008, Law No. 11,892 of December 29 created the Federal Institute of Education, Science, and Technology (IF). This institution was restructured into a multi-campus institution with a vertically integrated political-pedagogical approach, bringing together higher education (undergraduate and graduate programs), research, and outreach programs.

From this point on, libraries began to be characterized simultaneously as school and university libraries, a fact that led Moutinho (2014) to propose the term "multilevel library," conceived as such because it encompasses three levels of education (secondary, technical, and higher education). In this institutional context, it is understood that the multilevel library requires special attention to anchor its activities in the diverse profile of the IF community.

This work understands that Information Science (IS), especially Library Science, and Education are interrelated through a humanistic and social perspective and through the characteristic of education as a process of continuous learning, while information is an essential element in this development. Therefore, it is understood that, in addition to carrying out activities related to conventional library functions, the library is a space for non-formal learning and carries, intrinsically, in its nature, the role of promoting education for society.

In this sense, this study is justified by the understanding that promoting information literacy activities in the multilevel library is one way to address today's information challenges, such as misinformation, scientific denialism, and the psychology of fake news, while also providing opportunities for self-learning, multicultural coexistence, and the development of scientific thought. Furthermore, we understand that information literacy contributes to the redefinition of identity and the strengthening of the multilevel library, because, by its very nature—like all types of libraries—it carries the role of promoting education for society (Perrotti, 2016).

Information literacy involves the development of educational activities, that is, it refers to the formation of individuals capable of seeking, producing, disseminating, appropriating, and critically using information (Borges, Brandão & Barros, 2022). Therefore, it is understood that external information literacy activities provide the information subject with the development of critical, ethical, and independent thinking.

This work, stemming from the theoretical discussion of ongoing research in my doctoral program in Information Science, objectively elucidates the educational nature of the multilevel library, aiming to strengthen its identity and contribute to meeting emerging social demands in educational and informational aspects. Using a qualitative approach, the following question arises: How can the multilevel library strengthen its identity and contribute to meeting emerging social demands in educational and informational aspects?

This study is characterized as bibliographical and descriptive research, based on a review of specialized literature on the topic, including theorists from the fields of Library Science, Information Science, and Education.