Categorias configuradoras da Ciência da Informação: seleção, exploração e sistematização

Abstract

This article aims to select, explore and systematize configuration categories of Information Science in order to contribute for the epistemological debate. The literature of the area was chosen bearing in mind the selection of both abstract and concrete categories related to operations, products and services, and their public and contexts. At first, it shows an outline of the epistemological configuration of Information Science in the light of the documentary processes - understood here as a way to qualify the use of information – which characterize Librarianship, Archival Sciences and Museology. Then, it uses the category “needs of information” as the one which leads to the scheme document-system-user in Information Science. It also deals with the notion of document as materialized information, and explores the categories “production of documents” and “use of documents” since their various manifestations enable us to observe not only its generalizing character but also its differentiating aspects. Finally, It approaches the documentary systems in the sense of a set of information records which represent documents or scattered data which were built in order to be appropriated by real or potential users within a specific institutional environment; that is, the documentary systems are viewed as concrete tools that make it possible the documentary communication, which, in turn, make it possible the satisfaction of users’ information needs in specific contexts. As final considerations, the article states that information needs, analysed in relation to the ways and means to satisfy them, their motivations and implications, are the propelling phenomenon of Information Science.