Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Avaliação do uso de linguagem documentária em catálogos coletivos de bibliotecas universitárias: um estudo sociocognitivo com protocolo verbal

2009; Linguagem: Inglês

2639-6459

Vera Regina Casari Boccato,

Education and Digital Technologies

The indexing language plays a fundamental role in the indexing and information retrieval. When the indexing language does not correspond to the necessities of representation of the contents of the documents, carried out by the indexers and the requests of bibliographical searches through the users’ subject, it affects the performance of those processes, compromising the accomplishment of searches and services. The proposal is to carry through an evaluation study of the alphabetic indexing language use of the online collective catalogs, with a main focus on the technologies of representation and information retrieval, in the perspective of the university libraries and in the socio-cognitive context of indexers and users. With the general objective of to contribute for the adequate use of the alphabetical indexing languages in the indexing and information retrieval processes of specialized scientific areas in collective catalogs of the university libraries and thus, to collaborate with the process of continuous changes in the librarians’ practice and, consequently, of its using community, the research had as specific objectives: arguing the role of the alphabetical indexing languages in the conception of the collective catalogs through the perspective of the online catalogs; presenting and arguing about the indexing languages evaluation studies through the quantitave, qualitative and qualitative-cognitive approaches as evaluation methods, which are supported by the theoretical and methodological fundamentals of the Organization and Knowledge Representation area, coping with the contemporary paradigms of the Information Science area ; and investigating the application of the socio-cognitive approach by Verbal Protocol for an evaluation study of the alphabetical indexing language use of the collective catalogs in specialized scientific areas in the perspective of the university libraries. The methodology consisted of a diagnostic study elaboration of the functioning and treatment procedures of the indexing information from nine libraries of the UNESP Network, representing the Civil Engineering, Pedagogy and Dentistry areas from a data collection using the Verbal Protocol introspective technique in the Individual and Group forms with the purpose the examine the process of the indexing and bibliographical search activities, respectively as well as the view about the performance of the indexing languages coping with the thematic treatment and information retrieval needs. The data collection participating individuals of the verbal protocols in group were the leaders, the reference librarians, the catalogers, the university students and the leading teachers or members of research groups and of the individual verbal protocols were the catalogers and the students in their first and last years of the related courses. The individuals’ statements, which were carried through the “think aloud” moments, have been recorded and transcribed literally for the data analysis later. The study conducted a reflection upon the statements issued by the seventy-two participating individuals whose the results revealed unsatisfactory results about the use of the Subject Headings List of the BIBLIODATA Network, indexing language utilizing by the UNESP Libraries Network in the representation to indexing and in the information retrieval process in the ATHENA catalog , about the sequent aspects of the language: lack of specialized vocabulary as well as updated; inconsistent syntact-semantic structure in ambiguous headings; lack of remissives and of specific headings; syntax problems between singular and plural headings and incompatibility between the system’s language and the user’s search language which in its turn was seen in the three knowledge areas. About the librarian s practice in the indexing context, it was evidenced: an inadequate accomplishment of the subject analysis compromises the representation with the use non-corresponding subject headings to the level where the subject is effectively dealt with by the author; the language use for confirmation and validation of the headings; there is a tendency for the generic heading option to represent the indexing content leading to very comprehensive results in the retrieval; and the indexing needs specificity. In the information retrieval process and in the catalog, its were observed: a high revocation in the subject search retrieval; the language unavailability and inaccessibility by the local and remote user in search of a subject; and the catalog needs to make the documents’ analytical retrieval possible, among other aspects. The qualitative-socio-cognitive methodology with verbal protocol, it allowed us to evaluate the language use in the catalogers’ work context, by verifying their daily practice in the indexing activity, the understanding they previously had about the indexing language adopted by the system, the views on their performance and what they have considered as the system of knowledge organization which is appropriated for the representation needs and subject search. With regard to the users, the verbal protocol application in the information retrieval has allowed to evaluate the language use in the search strategies elaboration in order to carry out the subject search, the perception they have on their performance and also, an understanding of what they consider as a satisfactory performance and an adequate construction of indexing languages. We have concluded that the adequate use of indexing languages of specialized scientific areas becomes by means of evaluation as to updating, specificity and compatibility in order to meet the needs of indexing and information retrieval. The conception this scenario is applicable from an interactionist view between the environment and the individuals’ perception who are involved in the construction of a system of knowledge organization which is representative of a dimensional reality, that comes from the results obtained in the continuous process of evaluation. There is a tendency for the catalogs to start acting as if databases and thus, the librarian who does the document cataloging must also be aware of the importance of this role in the subject representation, presenting a commited attitude similar to an indexer who works in theses databases production. In the universe of the UNESP Libraries Network we recommend the construction of a controlled vocabulary to deal with the representation and information retrieval needs in the ATHENA online collective catalog.