Para uma abordagem contemporânea sobre ordenação de documentos: propostas do século XIX e início do XX

Abstract

The research approaches arrangement as an information organization process by specifically exploring shelf arrangement in a bibliographic perspective. In Brazil, solutions for shelf arrangement which were produced based on the call number are now widespread and, paradoxically, there is a shortage of studies written in Portuguese that consider the theme regarding the history of proposals and the currentness of the process. These gaps foster two especially harmful reductions in the organization of information: almost forgetfulness of discussions on different methods and proposals towards shelf arrangement and indiscrimination between shelf arrangement and the adoption of traditional bibliographic classification systems.Thus, this research is aimed to explore the models applied in order to promote shelf arrangement as debated from the 19th century onwards into the French and Anglo-American traditions, and also aimed to identify objectives and underlying concepts so to understand the process specificity and what it means presently. In this manner, a qualitative exploratory research was carried out, and as methodological procedure bibliographic research was applied. The study develops into two parts: the first explores contexts, objectives and methods associated with shelf management in the French and Anglo-American aspects from mid-19th century to 1930; while the second part identifies and discusses reviews and arguments that follow up a debate on the theme, in each model, up to the present time. The French one shows the relevance in shelf arrangement along other processes of information organization, the development of specific terminology, and the option for locally adapted solutions. As for the Anglo-American part, it is noted the centrality of the call numbers as model inseparable from the traditional bibliographic classification systems and replicable to the various bibliographic systems, especially libraries. In what concerns the generality of the process, the analysis indicates that it is described and characterized since the 19th century regarding the methods it applies (chronological, alphabetical, and systematic) and the relation it establishes between the functions attributed to the arrangement and the methods which consider them. The development of debates about shelf arrangement certifies the impossibility of an unequivocal manner of responding by the process, then highlighting its mediating dimension.