Social and informational responsibility in Brazil

Abstract

At the beginning of last century the major responsibility of the Librarianship was the preservation of library materials. In the middle of that century the British came and proved that much more than preserve, the major responsibility would be the dissemination of bibliographic material. It is clear that as libraries and as editorial industry was developing in the Anglo-Saxon countries and these countries determined economic hegemony, educational and informational humanity. During the cold war, more specifically with the launch of Sputnik by the Russians, the world, especially the United States of America (USA) awakened to the needs of bibliographic control and a new way to train information professionals with the capacity to evaluate strategic information. In the early sixties the works of Scarpit called 'famine to read and revolution the book', demonstrate that the book was not only for leisure or for didactic purpose, and show that the book is also a great way for social inclusion. At the end of the eighties Masuda argues that humanity was leaving a post-industrial society and entering into an information society. Information as synonymous with wealth, social inclusion and generation of a policy of employment and income. Then come the technological revolution and globalization that create in all fields of knowledge, especially in the Information Science, new professions and at the same time, break paradigms and also end up with old jobs. The challenges for the Information Science increase: how to end social exclusion?; How to train readers using library materials, digital and electronic? This raises the issue of information literacy and information literacy, demonstrating that information literacy is as important as literacy education. The new challenges for the Information Science must attend the third revolution in which scientists defend the scientific convergence and also as the Information Science will participate in the gap reducing between knowledge and public policy?