Mediação, serviço de referência e as leis de ranganathan: aproximações

Abstract

The literature presents a vast production about the reference service in libraries, developed from theoretical and empirical approaches. It is a widely explored theme, and its importance encourages new studies, especially those that identify the foundations of this service in order to strengthen its contribution to the production of knowledge. The purpose of this study is to correlate the reference service with the concept of information mediation, which is fundamental to library activities, and with the Laws of Librarianship, established by Ranganathan. To this end, the study explores and describes definitions, contextualizing the reference service as the representative element of the concept of mediation and correlating it with the ranganathian laws. The study is characterized as exploratory, descriptive and qualitative, supported by a theoretical-conceptual investigation, conducted by content analysis. The results reveal that the reference service establishes close relations both with the concept of mediation and with the Laws of Librarianship, whose characteristics are: help provided in the search for information, interaction with the user, personal assistance, guidance, offer of information sources and training of users. It is concluded that the reference service is based on principles that strengthen it, which justifies the value it has assumed for institutions, as it enables the access, use and appropriation of information for the production of knowledge by society.