EXTENSION PRACTICES AND LIBRARY ACTION

Abstract

This is a report on the extension practices carried out on the Course of Library Science at the Federal University of Maranhão – UFMA, in the Recreational and Charitable Union of Dwellers in the Villa Vitória, São Luís – MA. This work aims to allow students from the above-mentioned course, to share an experience of citizenship with regard to information practices, reading and school research with the local community. To this end, a questionnaire was applied with a view to making a survey of the interests, needs and demands for information of the inhabitants of the Villa Vitória. Activities such as seminars on information and knowledge; reading and reading practices; community libraries; practices of school research and sources and resources of information were developed taking as their guide line the course Help for the User. Starting from the apprehension of some concepts, courses were set up on school research, use of sources of information resources, as a way of improving the search for and use of available bibliographic material, as well as on reading practices, with a view to encouraging them and involving them in the world of reading and writing, conditions considered necessary for the exercise of citizenship in an information society. A small campaign was also organised to obtain books to make up the community library’s collection. Having obtained this material, teachers, students and inhabitants worked together on the cleaning, technical-scientific treatment, organisation and placing of the material on the shelves. The experience shows the need for maintaining practices of this nature on the Library Science Course, grounded on a political quality, in order to give new meaning to classes, to offer a more significant content to students and hence to improve our practice as teachers and librarians.