Mediating action of hybrid libraries: theoretical and empirical propositions

Abstract

With the initial function of serving as a space for storing and preserving knowledge, libraries, to fulfill their social role in contemporary times, need to act as mediators of information, in order to become places that build knowledge. Faced with new demands, these must adapt to the Digital Era, without excluding traditional functions. That said, the study aimed to reflect the theoretical and empirical relational propositions between hybrid library and information mediation in contemporary times. The research was carried out under a qualitative nature, through bibliographical and descriptive research, the results of which were based on content analysis. As for the sample studied, the articles used were collected from journals belonging to the following information sources: Base de Dados em Ciência da Informação and Google Scholar. It is concluded that there is an interrelationship between information mediation and hybrid libraries in the international context, in which the digital information culture of libraries began to adopt new information mediation tools in English society, the country with the largest number of libraries considered hybrid. On the other hand, it was noticed that although England has hybrid libraries, their design is technical in nature. Furthermore, in Brazil, libraries operate far from the concept and characterization of what hybrid libraries would be, considering that only São Paulo has this type of library, demonstrating that other regions need to move forward, regarding technological advances that impact, particularly, its performance in any sociocultural context, since libraries emerge from this interrelationship with the environment in which they belong.