INFORMATION LITERACY IN THE WORKPLACE: an insight into the use of skills of the librarian

Abstract

This study focuses on connection between professional of information and Information Literacy. At first the study approaches the beginning and development of Information Literacy as a general rule, after that it talks about the Information Literacy in Brazil. During the development of Information Literacy over the years we will see that it is not restricted to university but it can be used by people who intend to obtain any information. In this study, the definition for Information Literacy is presented after the main concepts for competence, as well as competence in the professional field. Actually, this study focuses on Information Literacy inside the work environment of librarian, and it also discusses how the competences are used by librarians who work in different information centers. The result of this study presents the connection between these three elements: Information Literacy, information center and professional of information. We also observed, during this research, the benefits of Information Literacy and the difficulties which were found inside the work environment of librarian. In this research, a semi-structured questionnaire, which was composed of twelve (12) questions, was used to collect information about Information Literacy of librarians who work in information centers in Fortaleza, where were chosen to apply this research. The main objective of this research is to express the point of view of librarians about Information Literacy and Information Technologies. The results which were obtained will show that librarians understand and know how to use Information Literacy and Information Technologies; however the connection between professional of information and Information Literacy needs to become more developed. Finally, it is necessary to take some factors into consideration in this study because they can influence and change the view and the use of competences inside work environment of librarians.