A educação a distância e a competência informacional em ambientes corporativos : um estudo de caso para os bibliotecários da Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco

Abstract

Distance Education (DE) has grown exponentially in recent years, reflecting higher education and corporate education, due to the organizations' need to qualify their employees. This research aims to analyze how the knowledge and development of the informational skills of UFRPE Librarians can be enhanced through the mediation of Distance Education. It was observed that DE can enhance informational competence, through methodological flexibility and cost-benefit ratio. This research, from a practical point of view, is justified by the observation of the practice of reference services within a public institution, in which librarians, although they know the sources of information, and the search tools, usually with the advent of new technologies, need the training to make the use of information resources more effective. The theoretical contribution of the research prioritized studies on DE, informational competence, construction of new knowledge, corporate education and training of librarians. The research was characterized by the descriptive nature, with the qualitative approach and the case study method. Two questionnaires and one interview were used as data collection instruments, and the questionnaires were applied to the librarians. Open questions were analyzed based on the Content Analysis procedures (BARDIN, 2016). The interview was carried out with the management of the development of people from UFRPE, tabulation of the data was made by the selection of thematic analysis units of the professionals' speeches in the questionnaires and interview, then the main themes were categorized. For the analysis of the results, the concepts presented throughout the research were adopted in a complementary way. What made it possible to identify the profile of the reference librarians of the Library System of UFRPE corroborates with most elements of informational competence. It was also possible to present some of the needs and perceptions of the servers regarding training. Finally, the need for the creation of a training course focused on the development of informational skills was ratified.