The reflex of the digital transformation in the activities and knowledges covered by the selection processes for information professionals in the public sector in Brazil

Abstract

We analyze and evaluate the professional activities and knowledges related to the digital transformation as they are described in the official announcements of selection processes for information professionals in the public sector between 2015 and 2019. Objective: to determine if the system used by the Brazilian public administration in the job selection processes for information professionals takes into consideration, to a sufficient extent, the activities to be developed and the contents to be put to practice in a digital scenario. Methodology: the selection processes for public jobs were chosen from the database of PCI Concursos, as well as with the help of RBO – Assessoria Pública and several CRBs (Regional Librarianship Professional Associations). When deemed necessary, we got in touch with the offices who commissioned the selection processes. The data about the identification of the process, the professional activities to be developed, and the required knowledges were taken from the official announcements and fed into dynamic Excel spreadsheets. The organization of the activities was based on the macroterms of Euro-Referential I-D. The required knowledges were categorized based on a synthesis of proposed information management indicators in a digital environment. Results: The results are displayed schematically, divided according to the different public sectors (universities, federal institutes, town halls, foundations, among others) and to the different jobs (archivist, archives assistant, archives technician, library assistant, cataloging assistant, librarian-documentalist, librarian, museologist). Conclusions/recommendations: The professional activities to be developed, and even more so the contents related to the digital transformation that are valued in the tests are overlooked in the official job announcements. In response to that, we recommend an in-depth review of these documents, with more attention to detail in the description of activities and knowledges, and a joint commitment to clarity on the part of the institutions that commission the job selection processes, the centers that run these processes and the CRBs themselves. We also recommend the convergence between the common mandatory contents offered in university undergraduate courses and the professional demands of the public sector.