Librarians: Looking from the perspective of an eyewitness experiences

Abstract

Faced with recent discussions in Library Science and Information Science about the social, cultural, and educational role of the librarian in the Information Age, this work questions which representations of this professional appear in the history of Brazilian Librarianship. The work proposes to identify and discuss librarians' depictions presents in statements expressed by Rubens Borba de Moraes in nine interviews given by him from 1978 to 1986. A period in which the intellectual reviews his own experience, which includes his participation in the "Semana de Arte Moderna" in 1922, working in the Libraries Division of the Department of Culture of the city of São Paulo, and teaching at the university, as a professor of Library Science at the University of Brasília, where he retired. To raise the categories of analysis, we performed a reading based on discursive markers, namely: the use of personal pronouns when describing actions, the use of verbs, and the use of negation as a definition. With this, it was possible to identify how Moraes presented himself at the time of speech; the themes addressed; the recurrence of historical examples and life examples, and the concepts and representations reiterated during the interview. On the recurring themes, we identify his constant concern in relating the librarian's identity with the paths of Brazilian Librarianship throughout its history. We see criticism of a librarian who is jealous of his political role, which, according to Moraes, was not fully assumed by the professional in the area.