Avaliação de bibliotecas digitais: uma pesquisa bibliográfica exploratória

Abstract

Libraries, as a product of human activity, undergo constant transformations and adapt to meet the social demands and technical and technological possibilities of each era. Within the realm of digital information environments, digital libraries serve as an important communication tool, providing remote access, allowing simultaneous use of the same document, and being available 24 hours a day, to name just a few of their advantages. In light of this, educational institutions have increasingly invested in these libraries; thus, issues related to the evaluation of this digital information environment become essential for accountability to society regarding the educational services provided. It has been found that the criteria for evaluating these libraries are not clearly defined in the literature, leading to the proposed general objective: to clarify the criteria for evaluating digital libraries adopted in Information Science and related fields. The following specific objectives were established: a) to present the evolution, history, characteristics, and objectives of digital libraries; b) to analyze the literature on the evaluation of digital libraries and present their methods, models, aspects, and theories; c) to organize the acquired knowledge and synthesize the evaluation criteria for digital libraries identified through research conducted in the Brazilian Digital Theses and Dissertations Library (BDTD). Regarding the objectives, the research is characterized as exploratory, applied in nature, with a qualitative approach. For data collection, bibliographic research was used, and for data analysis, Bardin's (2016) content analysis was adopted, resulting in the definition of four analysis categories: system resources, usability and interactivity, accessibility, and educational technology. It is concluded that both classic criteria, such as collection development, legal aspects, standards and interoperability, administration, and organization, as well as aspects relating to the integration of libraries into the digital environment, such as usability, accessibility, navigability, human-computer interaction, and digital literacy, are used for evaluating digital libraries. Typically, these criteria stem from established standards. Furthermore, the determination of which criteria to adopt depends on the focus of the evaluation as determined by the researcher.