The Chicago School’s influence in national scientific production regarding Information Science

Abstract The “Chicago School” is an intellectual movement constituted in the Department of Sociology of the University of Chicago between 1920 and 1930 and that also extended to Librarianship. In this area, authors such as Lee Pierce Butler, Jesse Hauk Shera, and Lester Eugene Asheim have advocated a pragmatist epistemology as the foundation of Librarianship. This perspective left a legacy of humanistic practice within librarianship that ultimately influenced the epistemological constitution of Information Science. In this sense, this article presents the results of a research whose general objective was to identify the Chicago School’s influence in the national scientific production within Information Science. Specifically, the objectives were to verify through the JITA Classification in which sub-areas of Information Science the Brazilian authors most use the theoretical-methodological resources of the Chicago School and to reflect on this school’s contributions in the publications found. Methodologically, the research was bibliographic, qualitative, and exploratory, without chronological delimitation, and in three databases. As a result, a documentary corpus of 25 articles is presented, most of which were published between 2003 and 2018 in Qualis A1, A2, and B1 journals. We conclude that the influence of Chicago School in the scientific production of Information Science in Brazil occurs within the theoretical and not the practical realm, as suggested by the pragmatism aspect that guides the movement itself.摘要 芝加哥学派（Chicago School）是1920至1930年间形成于芝加哥大学社会学系的学术思潮，其影响范围亦延伸至图书馆学（Librarianship）领域。在此领域中，李·皮尔斯·巴特勒（Lee Pierce Butler）、杰西·霍克·谢拉（Jesse Hauk Shera）与莱斯特·尤金·阿希姆（Lester Eugene Asheim）等学者主张以实用主义认识论（pragmatist epistemology）作为图书馆学的理论基础。该视角为图书馆学留下了人文主义实践传统，并最终影响了信息科学（Information Science）的认识论建构。有鉴于此，本文汇报了一项研究的成果，该研究的总体目标为探明芝加哥学派对巴西信息科学领域本土科研产出的影响；具体目标则为通过JITA分类法（JITA Classification），验证巴西作者在信息科学的哪些子领域中最为频繁地使用芝加哥学派的理论与方法论资源，并就该学派在已检出文献中的贡献展开反思。在方法论层面，本研究属于未设时间边界的文献、质性与探索性研究，数据来源于三个数据库。研究最终构建了由25篇文献组成的文献语料库，其中大部分文献发表于2003至2018年间，刊载于Qualis分级为A1、A2与B1的期刊。本研究结论表明，芝加哥学派对巴西信息科学科研产出的影响主要存在于理论层面而非实践层面，这与该思潮本身所秉持的实用主义特质相契合。