Desvendando as relações de outras disciplinas com a produção científica da ciência da informação brasileira

Abstract

Introduction: Although information science is labeled as an interdisciplinary science, the literature demonstrates that there is no consensus in the scientific community on this issue. Objective: investigate in the scientific literature the use of knowledge produced by Brazilian information science by researchers from other scientific areas and determine the type of relationship (multi, inter or transdisciplinary) established between other disciplines and information science. Methodology: The research was conducted in two stages. The data analyzed in the first stage came from an analysis of citations to Brazilian information science researches published between 1997 and 2016. SciELO, a digital library of scientific journals from Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries was used to gather this data. In the second stage, a quantitative analysis was performed in a convenience non-probabilistic sample of 15% of the citations of other disciplines to works from Brazilian information science indentified in the first stage. Furthermore, in the sample used in thesecond stage, for works of citations that showed properties indicating that research was built on the basis of an interdisciplinary relationship, a qualitative analysis was performed to determine the type of disciplinary relationship established in these works. Results: Should be highlighted that there was a growing trend of citations of information science papers by other scientific areas. It was also verified that the other areas of knowledge use the scientific knowledge produced by the national information science. Conclusions: It was found that Brazilian information science seems to have advanced theoretically and methodologically in the last 20 years. There was also an indication of the occurrence of a potential interdisciplinary relationship of other disciplines with Brazilian information science. However, this potential interdisciplinary relationship was not confirmed by the quantitative and qualitative analysis performed in the second stage of the research.