Aquisição e disponibilização de livros na Biblioteca Universitária da UFRN: indagações e análises a partir da teoria utilitarista

Abstract

The present research has as its theme the Collection Development, focusing on the acquisition process of books by purchase in the Central Library of UFRN and presents in its content a valuation from the utilitarian philosophical approach. This dissertation investigates how the process of acquiring books by purchase at UFRN university library should happen, taking into account the consequentialist perspective of Utilitarianism. In this sense, it is framed within the scope of applied ethics. From the perspective of the problem approach, the research is mixed (qualitative and quantitative), since it is concerned with collecting information from both aspects. The research had two main directions: the first one focused on the acquisition process of books by purchase in the library and on the specific aspects that were verified in this scope, and the second direction turns to the collection of Philosophy, in which a list of 05 (five) titles were used as standard bibliographies, and then compared with the collections of national and international university libraries. The academic library of UFSC and that of UFMG were chosen at the national level. Additionally, at the international level, 02 (two) American libraries were selected, Cambridge and Columbia, and 01 (one) British, the library of the University of Oxford. These libraries were chosen in a random way, but using as criterion their standard of excellence in Brazil and in the world, respectively. As for the technical procedures, the following ones were adopted: bibliographical research in scientific books and articles, documentary research, and field research with questionnaires directed to the participants in the book acquisition process at BCZM / UFRN. The data collected in the survey were enriched with information obtained through BCZM's managerial and statistical reports. The critical-normative analysis of the results will be built on the consequentialist perspective of Utilitarianism, in which is highlighted the maximization of the benefit of the access to information for the largest number of people, provided by the acquisition process, and presents reflections and suggestions about the inquiries from the investigated process.