Cultural mediation in the school library and the librarian infoeducator

ABSTRACT

Over time, the school library has changed its profile, opening the door to cultural mediation by trying to leave behind the stigma of a quiet place, and demanding a new performance from the school librarian. This article aims to analyze the path taken by the school library in Brazil in order to reflect on its current configuration as a space for cultural mediation and the role of the librarian-info-educator in the current context of these spaces, through exploratory bibliographical and documentary research, and a review of the school library concept. As a result, we can affirm the fundamental role of the school library in training its users through a practice that goes beyond supporting the classroom and encouraging reading, as well as the need for trained professionals to do so.

KEYWORDS:
School libraries; Access to the library; Librarians; Information policies and actions

RESUMO

Ao longo do tempo, a biblioteca escolar tem modificado o seu perfil, abrindo as portas para a mediação cultural ao tentar deixar para trás o estigma de lugar silencioso e cobrando uma nova atuação do bibliotecário escolar. Este artigo tem por objetivo analisar o caminho trilhado pela biblioteca escolar no Brasil a fim de refletir sobre sua atual configuração como um espaço de mediação cultural e o papel do bibliotecário-infoeducador no contexto atual desses espaços, por meio de uma pesquisa exploratória de caráter bibliográfico e documental, e de uma revisão do conceito de biblioteca escolar. Como resultado, podemos afirmar o papel fundamental da biblioteca escolar na formação de seus usuários por meio de uma prática que vá além do suporte à sala de aula e do incentivo à leitura, como também a necessidade de profissionais capacitados para tal.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE:
Bibliotecas escolares; Acesso à biblioteca; Bibliotecários; Políticas e ações de informação

1 INTRODUCTION

It is notorious that the school library in the current Brazilian context is far from what is desired. Besides the massive absence of school libraries in most of the country's educational institutions, when they exist they are largely in a precarious situation: faulty infrastructure, lack of investment, unmaintained and/or outdated collections; not rare are the institutions that do not even open their libraries, using them as a deposit or any function other than their original one.

When these libraries come into existence, there is something essential to make it effectively functional: the librarian. Most school libraries in Brazil today are coordinated by any professional other than the librarian. They are teachers who no longer have the physical or mental condition to be in the classroom, professionals awaiting compulsory retirement, and employees from various sectors relocated (PEREIRA, 2016, p. 38).

Tavares (1973) highlights the librarian as a vital part of the library's existence, being its daily activities complex and dynamic. In front of that, it is clear the need of the technical and specialized knowledge acquired by the disciples of the Librarianship during their formation. Concerning technical-administrative activities, Corrêa et al. (2002) state that, according to Litton (1978), school librarians are responsible for establishing procedures for the formation and development of collections, besides the technical processing stages, disclose their services to the school community, plan and execute the library program and integrate the library into the educational program.

According to Litton (1978 apud Corrêa et al., 2002), besides technical and administrative tasks, the school librarian's functions can be classified in a third group: educational tasks. Thus, in addition to the constant updating of educational methods and materials and the knowledge of the habits and difficulties of its users, the school librarian is responsible for "planning with the teachers, various forms of integration of the library service with the teaching program of the class" and "seeking to include a human character in the library service and to take care of the individual needs of students in the learning process" (LITTON, 1978 apud CORRÊA et al., 2002). This being said, it is clear that making librarian in the school environment goes far beyond techniques, borrowing books and encouraging reading, being a cross-curricular and educational practice at its core.

Therefore, this article aims to analyze the path taken by the school library in Brazil in order to reflect on its current configuration as a cultural mediation space and the role of the librarian-info educator in the context of these spaces, through an exploratory bibliographic and documentary research and a review of the concept of school library.

2 A DIACHRONIC LOOK AT THE SCHOOL LIBRARY

The different types of libraries have advanced in the direction of the deconstruction of the profile of a silent place, which only serves to offer bibliographic references, stigma reproduced mainly in libraries that integrate educational institutions, since these have always been spaces destined to the erudite portion of the population, not fitting in it the "balburdia¹" of other social groups. The ideal school library should work in harmony with the various sectors of the institution, having as its social function not only to promote and encourage reading and offer bibliographic support to the subjects addressed in the classroom, but also as an essential resource in the teaching and learning process, since

just as Pedagogy changed its focus and designed the educating as the center of the learning process, the school library changed its action, previously focused on the collection and now includes the user, expands its restricted space, covers the classroom and other sectors of the school and reaches the community. (MORO; ESTABEL, 2011, p. 13).

According to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) (2015, p. 19), the school library is characterized as

a space for physical and digital learning at school where reading, research, investigation, thinking, imagination and creativity are fundamental for the students' journey from information to knowledge and for their personal, social and cultural growth.

The history of the school library in Brazil is tortuous due to the scarcity of documents that relate to its history, however, as Araújo e Silva (2018) states, the history of these spaces is directly linked to the history of Brazilian education. In the mid-16th century the Society of Jesus was created by Ignatius Loyola in 1540, in Europe, with the approval of Pope Paul III. This institution had "the mission of catechizing and evangelizing people, preaching the name of Jesus" (SHIGUNOV NETO; MACIEL, 2008, p. 176). With the discovery of "new" lands in the Americas, members of the religious order of the Catholic Church, called Jesuits, landed in Bahia on August 25, 1549 in a fleet of six priests: Antônio Pires, Diogo Jácome, João de Azpilcueta Navarro, Leonardo Nunes, Manuel da Nóbrega and Vicente Rodrigues.

Besides educating the richest, since 80% of the Europeans themselves who came with the objective of colonizing the lands were illiterate (VÁLIO, 1990, p. 15), the Jesuits' mission was to "civilize" the natives according to the sacred scriptures of the Catholic Church:

The Jesuit Educational Project was not only a catechism project, but a much broader project, a project of social transformation, because its function was to propose and implement radical changes in Brazilian indigenous culture (SHIGUNOV NETO; MACIEL, 2008, p. 173).

With the creation of more than 10 educational institutions in eight years, the books brought in the luggage of the Jesuits did not meet the educational demands, being necessary to make copies of the booklets in order to alphabetize Brazil Cologne (VÁLIO, 1990). Since the copies were not enough, the Society of Jesus asked the central office to send larger consignments of books, a request that was met not only with works for the instruction of children and young people, but also for the erudition of teachers and educators. Over the years, each of the Jesuit school libraries had more than 1,000 copies, the most sumptuous of which was Salvador, with a beautiful baroque panel in the center and a collection of more than 15,000 volumes (MORAES, 2006). The Rio de Janeiro school library is another great example of the size of these collections, with 5,434 volumes in the mid-18th century; a notable part of works from the personal collection of Bartolomeu Simões Pereira, an ecclesiastical historian who came to Brazil in 1577, who, upon his death in 1601, left half of his collection, several civil and canon law editions, to the Rio de Janeiro school library (MORAES, 2006).

According to Rubens Borba de Moraes (2006), in his work "Books and Libraries in Colonial Brazil", the Jesuit libraries were equivalent to real colleges, going from teaching the first letters to philosophy courses, being allowed access to the libraries any person with a reasonable request, not only students and priests, as usual today, however it is important to remember that most of the population at that time was illiterate.

Although the Jesuits are more prominent, other religious orders such as Benedictines, Franciscans and Carmelites also came and founded schools with good libraries attached to their monasteries. Besides diverse collections, the plurality of religious orders responsible for teaching at the time resulted not only in the diversity of bibliographic collections, but also in the diversity of pedagogical practices:

The Franciscans, for example, added methods of experimental values of the sciences, valuing the studies of French ideals, represented, above all, by the idea of illustration, while the Jesuit methods were essentially scholastic (CARVALHO SILVA, 2010, p. 24).

Until the middle of the 18th century, the conventual libraries were the main source of information and culture for Brazilians, but this paradigm began to crumble in 1759 with the expulsion of the Society of Jesus and, later, the circular of May 19, 1835 prohibiting the novitiate, which according to Moraes (2006, p. 24) "was a death sentence for the convents"; both feats of the Marquis of Pombal. Costa (2013, p. 28-29) states that such decisions conceived by Pombal have political reasons, since:

Pombal's goal was to organize the schools in such a way as to favor the interests of the state and not the 29 interests of faith, like the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits meant a threat to the imposition of the absolutist system, desired by Pombal, centralized in the state and aspiring to control all social life of individuals.

In addition to the destructuring of pedagogical practices in the country, the dissolution of convent schools and their libraries also resulted in a great loss for bibliographers and historians with the loss of works and the dispersion of collections. Taking the Society of Jesus as an example, with its expulsion and confiscation of its assets, much of its library holdings were lost, whether due to conservation issues and lack of proper packaging or the improper use of books that had their pages torn out and used for making packages and packages:

Books taken from schools were piled up in inappropriate places for years while inventorying the property of the uninitiated. If one or other work was incorporated into the bishoprics, some sent to Lisbon, almost all of it was dilapidated, stolen or sold as old paper to apothecaries for wrapping ointments. The humid climate and the insects ruined the rest (MORAES, 2006, p. 10).

The Pombaline period lasted until 1808 and basically extinguished the libraries of that time, both for lack of resources and for lack of collections and librarians. With the end of the era of a conventual education, new school models emerged over time. With the arrival of the Royal Family, "higher schools, two medical surgical schools, the naval academy, the military academy, the fine arts academy and a school of commerce" (LOURENÇO FILHO, 2002, p. 19), but it was only after Independence that there was greater concern with the creation of free elementary school for the population, which, according to Válio (1990), were responsible in the national context for the emergence of school libraries as we understand them today; however, around 1827 these schools "did not have libraries, or when they did exceptionally have them, it was more to serve as a reference for teachers and not for use by students" (FERRAZ, 1957, p. 126).

Between the fall of religious schools and the rise of new schools and their libraries there were, as Silva (2011) cited, very questionable moments. One of these, for example, was considered by many to be the kickoff of São Paulo education: the creation of the Mackenzie College school library, dating from 1886, four years before Mackenzie College itself was founded in 1870 (CASTRO, 2000, p. 64).

Education in Brazil in the first half of the 20th century underwent several pedagogical reformulations that were responsible for opening space for new models of school libraries. "At the national level, the education reforms carried out by Fernando de Azevedo (1927-1930) and Anísio Teixeira (1931-1935) at Escola Nova² legitimized the school library in the education system" (EGGERT-STEINDEL; FONSECA, 2010, p. 2), since these educators "defend the idea that teaching and the library are not mutually exclusive, they complement each other" (CASTRO, 2003, p. 66). The contribution of these educators to libraries (and education in general) is undeniable. Fernando Azevedo, when he took over the general direction of Public Instruction in the Federal District, in addition to praising the organization of school libraries, made it compulsory in 1928 to have two libraries in each elementary school in Rio de Janeiro: one for teachers and one for students (VIDAL, 2000). When he replaced Fernando Azevedo in the direction of Public Instruction, Anísio Teixeira created the Central Library of Education (BCE) in 1932 and two years later the Children's Library. The ECB, for example, had as its goal:

to coordinate and guide the distribution of books to students and to offer teachers of the public network better conditions for professional and cultural improvement, in addition to stimulating the activities of libraries and film libraries created in the school units (CASTRO, 2003, p. 67).

With the arrival of the Estado Novo, a golden age of censorship hovered over the Institute of Education, especially over library-centered education, since Getúlio Vargas' government explicitly nationalist and anti-communist believed that the works in these libraries were subversive and a threat to civic morality in the country. Even so, Vargas implemented a policy of assistance to school and public libraries with the creation of the National Book Institute (INL) by Decree Law No. 93 of 12/21/1937, with the production and dissemination of books aligned with his political ideology, and the creation of the National Institute of Pedagogical Studies (INEP) by Law No. 378 of 13/01/1937.

Then, during the Estado Novo, a new concept of school library appeared, which became a crucial element for the stimulation of reading and the teaching-learning process. However, the absence of national policies specifically addressing the school library remained from that period until the 1980s (SALA; MILITÃO, 2017), which resulted in the stagnation of school library spaces during that time interval.

The 1950s were a milestone in the creation of school libraries, with Santa Catarina as a model, with more than 750 libraries implemented in dozens of schools (EGGERTSTEINDEL; FONSECA, 2010, p. 4), this and the following decade being strong indicators of concern with the creation of libraries in schools in Brazil, as shown in the table below:

Chart 1
Number of School Libraries in Brazil (1969)

Region	Total school libraries	Total of school libraries registered in INL
North Region	98	55
Northeast Region	499	378
Southeast Region	1811	1486
South Region	2859	2595
Center West Region	140	81
TOTAL	5407	4595

• Source: Araújo e Silva (2018, p. 22)

However, it is important to remember that, despite remarkable growth during the 1960s, the military dictatorship had a major negative impact on school and public libraries. Military forces invaded these spaces and gave the most varied ends to the existing collections, returning the population to "accommodation and socio-informational alienation" (CASTRO, 2003, p. 69) similar to the educational experience of the Vargas Era.

This period was the period of greatest repression and censorship in the history of the country and directly affected all types of libraries. According to Castro (2003), from basic to higher education, everything that was read, studied or researched should pass through government approval, thus stagnating critical thinking and scientific development at the time. Even after its end, the sequels of the military period can be seen until today, from remaining fascist ideologies in the political scenario to the bamboo legs of legislation that contemplate school libraries and public education.

Only in 1997, with the creation of the National Curricular Parameters (PCN) and the National Library at School Program (PNBE), did school libraries manage to see on the horizon a national policy that would ensure their existence and performance in a functional way.

When it comes to libraries, in the 22 volumes of PCN (1997), there are direct and indirect mentions to this space. In addition to guidelines on the different materials that should compose school library collections (encyclopedias, poetries, children's books, twine, dictionaries, etc.), there are also proposals in the NCPs for activities to be carried out within the library space as a kind of reading club, where there are positive and negative criticisms to the work recently read.

The library is therefore seen as a learning space, a continuity of the classroom, which fosters not only the development of skills linked to the effective use of information, but also of attitudes concerning aspects of socialization and sharing, and of patterns of personal taste (CAMPELLO; SILVA, 2000, p. 62, apud SALA; MILITÃO, 2017, p. 4672)

The same cannot be said of PNBE, a program of the Ministry of Education "through which collections have been distributed to libraries and to students and teachers in public schools in various formats" (BRAZIL, 2008, p. 05). The problem is that PNBE seems to be more concerned with trying to encourage reading through the distribution of books than with working as a support program for school libraries. Books that are distributed which, according to GARCEZ, 2007, p. 28, are commonly distributed:

end up disappearing due to the lack of an appropriate place (library), the lack of adequate treatment (lack of professional librarian) and the lack of dynamization of readings, reflex of the little partnership or approach between librarians and teachers

The PNBE itself puts in check its performance by stating, more than 10 years after its creation, that

considering the low results presented by students in public elementary schools in evaluations such as PISA and the critical data collected by the National System of Basic Education - SAEB on the reading performance indicators of children at the end of the first and last years of elementary school, it can be seen that the distribution of collections to schools, students and teachers by PNBE has been performing in a timid way its function of promoting the insertion of students in the letter culture. (BRAZIL, 2008, p. 5, emphasis added).

These situations raise questions about the functionality of the PNBE: "Born for the purpose of sowing books, the PNBE has performed its function annually, however, the question that follows is to what extent it has sent the people to think" (IGUMA; FERNANDES, 2010, p. 6 apud SILVA, 2011, p. 498).

On May 24, 2010, Law 12,244/10 was sanctioned by then-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which provides for the universalization of school libraries, the result of a great mobilization by the System of Federal and Regional Library Councils (CFB/CRB) with deputies, senators, and, to a certain extent, Brazilian society in general. Making the creation of libraries mandatory in all schools in the country by 2020, Law 12,244/10 presents the following content:

Art. 1 Public and private educational institutions of all educational systems in the country will have libraries, in accordance with this Law.

Art. 2 For the purposes of this Law, a school library is the collection of books, video graphic materials and documents registered in any support intended for consultation, research, study or reading.

Sole Paragraph. A collection of books in the library of at least one title shall be mandatory for each enrolled student, and the respective teaching system shall determine the expansion of this collection according to its reality, as well as disclose guidelines on custody, preservation, organization and operation of school libraries. Art. 3 The country's education systems shall develop progressive efforts so that the universalization of school libraries, under the terms provided for in this Law, shall be effected within a maximum period of ten years, respecting the profession of Librarian, disciplined by Laws no. 4,084, of June 30, 1962, and 9,674, of June 25, 1998. Article 4 This Law comes into force on the date of its publication. (BRAZIL, 2010).

When we look at studies such as INEP³ that show that more than 50% of Brazilian schools do not have libraries, it becomes clear that the reality proposed in Law 12,244/10 is still utopian, but the simple achievement of ensuring by law the existence and proper functioning of these spaces is already a reason for celebration in the field of librarianship and education; as stated Antonio Miranda:

In fact, a country with 300,000 public and private schools - the overwhelming majority without school libraries to support pedagogical and recreational activities - requires any initiative to expand the access of students and teachers to the universe of recorded knowledge or, to use a more current expression, to real and virtual contents of user interests (MACEDO, 2005, p. 16).

With the arrival of 2020, the year that according to Law 12. 244/10 would be the deadline for the universalization of school libraries, the CFB (2019) states that currently "we do not lack laws for school libraries and the exercise of the librarian, but we lack public policies and the noncompliance and omission of legislation in force" and to bring light to this issue elected 2019 as the National Year of the School Library with a campaign throughout Brazil entitled #SOMOSTODOSBIBLIOTECAESCOLAR in order to denounce the existing evils and foster discussions about these spaces.

3 THE SCHOOL LIBRARY AS A PLACE OF CULTURAL MEDIATION AND INFOEDUCATION

The library, regardless of its typology, is a growing organism, that is, one that changes and adapts itself according to the new informational needs that may arise. According to Costa (2013), if in the beginning of its creation the school library had only the mission of offering bibliographic support to the institution that owned it, it is clear the deconstruction of this paradigm in the current context of the learning society:

The school library is an institution of the social system that organizes bibliographic, audiovisual and other materials and makes them available to an educational community. It is an integral part of the educational system and participates in its objectives, goals and ends. The school library is an instrument for curriculum development and enables the promotion of reading and the formation of a scientific attitude; it is an element that forms the individual for permanent learning; it stimulates creativity, communication, facilitates recreation, supports teachers in their training, and provides them with the necessary information for making decisions in class (OAS, 1985, p. 22).

Currently, the school library has a greater responsibility in the teaching and learning process, being crucial in encouraging reading and training the student as a citizen subject within a society.

In its document on guidelines for school libraries, IFLA states that the school library differs from other types of libraries by several characteristics, and one of them would be the profile of the professional who assumes (or at least should assume) the coordination of these places:

It has a qualified school librarian with formal education in school librarianship and classroom teaching, which provides the professional competence required for the complex functions of teaching, reading and literacy development, school library management, collaboration with teaching staff and involvement with the educational community (IFLA, 2015, p. 20).

As the school library evolves in its characteristics, whether the concept, mission or objective, it is logical that the profile of the librarian acting in these spaces evolve in unison:

The library now welcomes, besides the human being, the social being, who shares, exchanges and searches the sources, the knowledge, which is not only registered in books, but in several supports in a network that integrates people and new learning. And in this sharing, building, collaborating and cooperating, you find a democratic space, with accessible resources, spaces for discussion and exchange, locks that are open with the key to access. In this process, the librarian becomes the mediator between the information and the user, the bridge, the librarian-educator. (MORO; ESTABEL, 2011, p. 13-14).

The act of recognizing oneself as an educator is vital for the librarian to stimulate the pedagogical role of the school library, since it is his performance in education that in fact legitimizes him as an educator (CAVALCANTI; BORBA, 2011). Thus, the school library is an important teaching and learning tool and the librarian, in partnership with the institution's teachers, is responsible for ensuring the functioning of this space.

Currently, the library must be closely linked to the educational concept of the school in which it is inserted and to the paradigm of lifelong learning, and it is believed that a guiding and guiding parameter of this condition is the integrated work between teachers and librarians (BELLUZZO, 2008, p. 12).

However, it is worth pointing out that this is a two-way street, it is not enough just for the librarian to recognize himself as an educator, it is necessary that the institution in which he finds himself sees him in the same way and stimulates his actions beyond the stereotype of the person sitting behind the counter asking for silence:

Although many librarians consider themselves educators and have the status to do so, the schools and colleges to which they are attached do not always perceive these professionals as colleagues engaged in the educational process. In general, library collections are essential to a student's education, but the need to educate oneself to master information often takes second place. (DUDZIAK, 2001, p. 115).

However, where are the librarians who do not occupy the school libraries? Added to the precariousness of the institutions and the lack of inspection by the CRBs, there is still no study that justifies the existence of a latent disinterest of librarianship professionals in occupying school environments, but it is suspected that this is a reflection of the formation of these professionals (SILVA, 1995).

Acting within the school library environment, as seen before, requires skills on the part of the acting professional so that it works according to its principles. However, the reality is that developing these skills is not part of most of the pedagogical projects of the country's library schools.

According to Neilia Almeida (2013), the first course of the Librarianship in the country was offered by the National Library in 1915 and followed the humanist bias of the French School of Librarianship, focused on the study of arts and philosophy. In 1929, Mackenzie College began offering the Elementary School of Library Science, which had adopted the technical character of the American school. Almeida (2012, p. 50) states "that over the years, both the practice and teaching of the Librarianship have been leaving aside the erudite aspect and assimilating the technical side of the United States.

In this sense, the development of the librarian who recognizes and perfects his profile as an educator and cultural mediator may be hampered thanks to the technical bias adopted in the pedagogical curricular project of some Librarian schools, a reflection of the tortuous path taken by the Librarianship in the country, which give little or no prominence to the school library and/or cultural projects and actions, with these themes falling within the "margins" of the curriculum: the lower workloads of the grades and the positions of elective disciplines.

Wérleson Santos (2018) notes this when analyzing the Political Pedagogical Curriculum Project of the Bachelor's Degree in Librarianship at UFPE, according to the author in his theoretical-conceptual framework, the PPP deals with the socio-cultural formation of the librarian with respect to:

the occupation of peripheral communities of cultural equipment through the creation of community libraries due to the negligence on the part of public authorities in the tangent to this issue; the need to train professionals with themes that address the most varied types of libraries and the issues of cultural actions for the promotion of cultural appropriation, and, more explicitly, by saying that the training of professionals "should prepare them as agents of cultural mediation contributing to the reduction of asymmetries between individuals or groups and symbolic goods in specific social contexts" (UFPE, 2011, p. 12). (SANTOS, 2018, p. 55).

Even so, when viewed more closely, from 23 compulsory disciplines of the curriculum, only two contemplate and train the professional of Librarianship formed by UFPE as an active cultural agent, being deficient as cultural mediator and efficient as a technician.

This point was also observed by Lima (2016) in his doctoral thesis when he approached the technical bias in detriment to the humanist adopted by the Schools of Librarianship in the Brazilian scenario, making it difficult for the librarian to recognize himself as an agent of cultural mediation, understood by Lima and Perrotti (2016) as something that encompasses the mediation of information since information is also a cultural object, when this should actually be the key point of his profession.

For this it is necessary to reflect that, as Almeida Júnior and Santos Neto (2009, p. 92) state, information mediation can be understood as:

any interference action - performed by the information professional -, direct or indirect; conscious or unconscious; singular or plural; individual or collective; that propitiates the appropriation of information that satisfies, fully or partially, an informational need.

In this way, the common bond between librarianship professionals is eradicated, linking the action of mediation of information solely to the practice of the reference service. This action is present in all the work of the librarian, whether in the different stages of the process of formation and development of collections, in the development of specialized databases or in the relations between users and collections of any media.

Since information is a cultural object, Lima and Perrotti (2016, p. 173) characterize cultural mediation as such:

the activity that aims to provide equal opportunities and conditions for people to be inserted as protagonists in the cultural journey and, thus, in dynamic processes of appropriation, to appropriate, resign and rebuild cultural assets, as well as invent, define and renew them. (LIMA; PERROTTI, 2016, p. 173).

Therefore, cultural mediation goes beyond the image of a bridge between the user and the cultural object, an image that Almeida Júnior and Santos Neto (2019, p. 92) consider inappropriate since it "presents the idea of something static, which takes something from one point to another point, being these predetermined and fixed, and without interfering in the path, the way of walking and at the end of the journey", because

It is not a question of binding an audience to a culture, but of enabling the conditions for the individual to decide whether he or she wants to be bound, because the protagonist decides. [...] cultural mediation is the act of creating cultural and cognitive conditions for clashes between actors and signs (LIMA; PERROTTI, 2016, p. 166167).

Therefore, the school librarian must be familiar with the different ways of performing cultural mediation. According to Teixeira Coelho (1997), the most outstanding ones are: cultural action, cultural animation and cultural manufacturing. The author defines cultural action as a "set of procedures, involving human and material resources, aimed at putting into practice the objectives of a certain cultural policy" that is broken down into "four phases, levels or circuits of the cultural production system: production, distribution, exchange and use" (TEIXEIRA COELHO, 1997, p. 31). The author also states that there are two basic types of cultural action: services and creation. The cultural action of services aims to bring an audience and a "product" closer together through advertising and/or propaganda, consisting of a facet of Cultural Animation, the first term used to characterize mediation between an audience and cultural objects through workshops and amateur courses of artistic initiation which, according to Teixeira Coelho (1997, p. 42), "was one of the basic instruments of organization and promotion of leisure understood not as a simple occupation of time but as an educated or enlightened use of free time.

According to the author, the objective of the Cultural Production Action is "to implement measures that allow the effective generation of works of culture or art" (TEIXEIRA COELHO, 1997, p. 31) and differs from Cultural Production in terms of methodology and purpose. While Cultural Fabrication is characterized by its well-defined beginning and stages that must be followed in order to reach a pre-established end, Cultural Action, on the other hand, "is a process with a clear and armed beginning but without a specified end and, therefore, without stages or intermediate stations through which one must necessarily pass - since there is no terminal point to which one intends or hopes to reach". (TEIXEIRA COELHO, 2001, p. 12). The cultural action of production, even if it results in a cultural object, is mainly concerned with the process that leads to its production, not with the result itself.

The Cultural Action of distribution seeks to promote conditions for cultural objects to be available to the public in institutions such as libraries, museums, cinemas, bookstores, etc., while in the Cultural Action aimed to change this access to the object is made through individual or collective financing, such as the monetary price of a book or the entrance of a film into the cinema. Finally, the Cultural Action directed to the use consists in the elaboration of catalogs, lectures and courses in order to "promote the full enjoyment of a certain work, which involves the understanding of its formal, content, social and other aspects" (TEIXEIRA COELHO, 1997, p. 31-32).

When it comes to the school environment, Lima and Perrotti (2016, p. 175) state that "the pedagogical dimension of cultural mediation also characterizes the cultural mediator as an educator who acts by developing individual and public relations and works with intersubjectivity, autonomy, and politics", thus giving rise to what Perrotti and Pieruccini (2008) define as info educator. According to the authors,

the new category, situated at the interface of Information and Education professionals, between librarians, documentalists, teachers and educators in general, is not the product of the simple sum of these traditional categories, nor disconnected pieces of each. Rather, it is a professional of synthesis, resulting from new historical and cultural times, new ways of being, understanding, relating and acting with knowledge and culture. (PERROTTI; PIERUCCINI, 2008, p. 89).

In this sense, the info educator is the professional who, besides having mastery of informational knowledge, is able to dialogue with the agents interested in becoming protagonists of cultural mediation action.

The school librarian, since he dominates not only the informational knowledge, but also the practices of cultural mediation, consists of a professional understood as an info educator. Thus, the school librarian should not be tied to the practice of the technique or actions aimed solely at encouraging reading, although both are extremely important, because he should be a mediator between users and information tools. Only through the mediation of the librarianinfo educator does the user have access to the instruments that ensure his or her protagonism in the exercise of democracy.

4 FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The look at the school library as a cultural device in a diachronic way, pondering its memory and how its historical process was constituted becomes fundamental to understand its configuration in the contemporary panorama. In this journey we can see that from the inaccessibility of Jesuit libraries to the lack of functional public policies regarding school libraries, what ended up spreading over the years was, according to Silva (2011, p. 499), "a disqualified notion of school library that configures the current panorama of the Brazilian school library (without generalizations)".

However, it is justifiable to believe that the school library, even in its majority taken by all the ills of its context, still plays a fundamental role in the formation of students and, for this, it becomes indispensable for its effective advancement the presence of professionals trained and able to encourage the development of students not only in the performance of research necessary for their formation, but also in relation to reading itself, its constitution as citizen subjects. Therefore, the role of the library goes beyond the classroom, so that each one of them has a role to play in the educational process. This educational function of the school library has been increasingly valued, and for its effective operation, the presence of a trained professional capable of creating an environment of cultural and information mediation, providing an interactive and attractive place in the eyes of the users, since it currently holds a greater responsibility in the teaching learning process, and it is crucial that the school librarian assume once and for all his role as cultural mediator.

The cultural mediator, understood by Lima and Perrotti (2016, p. 169) as "the articulator between cultural assets - knowledge and symbolic objects - and an individual, a group or a collectivity, through devices or instrumental resources for access and appropriation of these assets", is vital in these processes. The authors mention "symbolic knowledge and objects" as cultural goods, because, as observed by Dufrêne and Gellereau (2004), it is common to link cultural mediation to formal cultural institutions (museums and libraries, for example), disregarding private and collective practices (games, videos, recreational practices, etc.) as culture.

Therefore, it is the duty of the school librarian to occupy the place of info-educator to, together with the other professionals of the educational institution, make the library through the practices of cultural mediation a democratic and safe place to promote discussions about social issues fundamental to the development of the user attentive to the fundamental rights of the human being, since it is at this stage that most students are in the process of character formation and should be educated to be as tolerant as possible in the face of diversities.

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• 

  
  

• 1
  The term gained a new connotation when it was used in April 2019 by former Education Minister Abraham Weintraub in an interview with the newspaper Estado de São Paulo to justify the 30% cut in the budget of public universities that, according to him, seek to promote with the money earmarked for maintaining the institutions movements of opposition to the current government instead of improving their academic performance even though the universities accused of "mess" by the minister had improved in the main international university ranking (Times Higher Education). (AGOSTINI, 2019).
• 2
  Escola Nova was an active movement between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th that proposed the renewal of teaching and had great popularity in Europe and Brazil.
• 3
  DEPUTY CHAMBER; HAJE, Lara. Data from Inep show that 55% of Brazilian schools do not have a library or reading room. In: Education, culture and sports. [S. l.], 6 dec. 2018. Available at: https://www.camara.leg.br/noticias/549315-dados-do-inep-mostram-que-55-das-escolas-brasileiras-nao-tembiblioteca-ou-sala-de-leitura/. Access in: 3 Sep. 2019.

• JITA:

  DE. School libraries.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  18 Sept 2023
• Date of issue
  2020

History

• Received
  20 July 2020
• Accepted
  16 Aug 2020
• Published
  02 Oct 2020