Usuários da Informação: sujeitos perfilados com base na Ciência da Informação

Abstract

In the current society context, available information is increasing as well as the ways to access it. The development of information and communication technologies allowed scientific works to go through changes in their production, dissemination, access and use. In this scenario, in Information Science the subjects that use information, named information users, begin to present changes in their demands, desires, needs and use of information. In this context, this paper defines information user and user studies based on their typologies and focuses on the main user centered paradigms based on reviewed literature. We aimed to theoretically reflect about these subjects who are important to the research development about access and use of information, despite of which information unit they are part of. We ultimately consider that the user studies, in Information Science, must be conducted in order to not only to identify them, but to comprehend its gaps, needs and complexity as a subject (that made or will make use of information) and its search strategies in an informational environment.