Working spaces for information professionals in Brazil: preliminary results

Abstract

The world today can be understood through its multiple cultural, political, economical and social spheres. Transformations in the information community are leading information professionals to redefine their roles in their traditional work areas. These new aspects of work are creating new relationships between professions and, in some cases, are breaking down barriers between them. The explosion of the Internet communication and the increase in value of information as a strategic resource are leading growing numbers of people to work with information sources. This movement is creating tensions as well as new opportunities for partnerships in the field. The combination of these movements, tensions and partnerships have formed a new field of competence, or rather, a new professional jurisdicition (Abbott, 1988). Discussion lists for Brazilian Information Sciences and sites focussing on the field have, since 2000, published job vacancies for information professionals. With this in mind, this study aims to discover and define job vacancies for Brazilian information professionals available on the Internet between 2005 and 2006. It uses Bardin’s (2004) technique of content analysis, and uses the following analysis criteria: subject date, information source, profession type, city, qualifications and required functions. The first results have shown that most vacancies are for librarians and archivists and are centred around major Brazilian cities, such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.