Nem tudo que parece é: as bibliotecas comunitárias caxienses e as suas relações com o poder público municipal

Abstract

Grounded in the field of Education and in dialogue with Librarian Science, this doctoral dissertation studies community libraries from the perspective of spaces for social transformation in the bias of non-formal education. The research problem aims to answer the following question: What are the potentialities of educational practices developed in community libraries for the place, especially in promoting the autonomy and citizenship of users and territories? Thus, the general goal was to analyze the potential of educational practices developed in community libraries related to access to reading and information, in the purpose of achieving autonomy and citizenship for users and territories in Caxias do Sul - Rio Grande do Sul. As a justification for the research, it is pointed out the need for access to reading and information in peripheral communities, especially in community libraries in Caxias. The theoretical framework is based on the concept of community libraries from authors such as Machado (2008; 2009), Fernandez & Machado (2016; 2018) and Castrillón (2018), and on the field of Education, Paulo Freire (1979; 1980; 2011; 2017a; 2017b) regarding the perspective of non-formal education and popular education. The sources used for analysis were documents produced by the Municipal Public Library of Caxias do Sul, interviews with public officials and reading agents, direct observation writing journal, legal documents and official publications on the City Hall website. Data analysis was based on Bardin's Content Analysis (2016), considering its four stages: organization, coding, categorization and inference. Until 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, the city of Caxias do Sul had 17 community libraries in operation, three of which were investigated as case studies. The research revealed the influence of City Hall in the implementation of these libraries, from 2008 to 2016 all of them were created by the government and not by the communities themselves, as should happen in the case of community libraries. The relationship established between the government and the facilities is one of dependence for their maintenance, approaching a bond of subordination, in which the City Hall is sometimes placed as the creator and coordinator of community libraries, sometimes only as a provider of technical assistance. The official discourse assumes a partnership relationship from 2008 onwards, but this study reveals that the intentions of creating spaces predate the beginning of this action, coming from the 1990s, and the Municipal Culture Plan (2011) conveys the intention of the public power to absorb and take over the units in its library network. This study considers that community libraries in Caxias are neighborhood public libraries, neglected by the municipal government, which over the years, in different administrations since the installation of the first libraries, took different positions in relation to the initial project, which resulted in moments of distinct relationships, tensions and in the omission in the continuity of the service performed. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]