Reading between Librarians’ lines

It is a well known fact that librarians, as professionals go, are not among the world's most demonstrative people. I can say that with impunity because I am one. It's one thing for a man to slight his own profession; quite another when someone else presumes to do it. But given that librarians are a placid sort, just mention the phrase "intellectual freedom," or utter the word "censorship," and the usually calm demeanor of the librarian becomes as agitated as the water between Charybdis and Scylla! This article addresses three aspects of the issue of intellectual freedom and attempts to define the difference between the phrases "free speech" and "free expression." First to be explored will be the nature of intellectual freedom as defined by the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Manual; second, the underlying philosophy implicit in that expression; and third, an alternative to both the manual, and its philosophical presuppositions.

Reading at Risk

Reading may be in jeopardy as we advance along the information superhighway. Is literacy to be technology's first roadkill?

Reading Is, Like, You Know, Sooooo Gross!

“Huge Decline in Book Reading” ran one headline. “Cultural Atrophy!” read another. “Study Links Drop in Test Scores to a Decline Spent in Reading” ran one for the “Duh!” award. “Americans are Closing the Book on Reading” said one, vying for the pun-acious trophy.

Cultura e desenvolvimento local: um estudo do Programa Bairro-Escola da cidade de Nova Iguaçu

A relação entre cultura e desenvolvimento é um dos assuntos centrais dos debates contemporâneos que vão além do ambiente acadêmico e atinge a agenda política em diversos países. A cultura exerce um papel importante para o desenvolvimento que não se restringe à dimensão econômica, pois é capaz de construir ou reconstruir identidades, elevar a auto-estima individual e coletiva, adicionar valor ao patrimônio existencial humano. Faz-se necessário, ainda, um outro conceito de desenvolvimento, calcado em outras lógicas, sendo geográfica, social e culturalmente referenciado e promovendo uma transformação social profunda. No Brasil, alguns governos locais vêm assumindo o seu papel de protagonista do desenvolvimento com base nessa proposta. Em Nova Iguaçu - cidade localizada na Baixada fluminense - vem sendo desenvolvida uma política pública cujo protagonista e indutora é a Prefeitura municipal. Trata-se do Programa Bairro-Escola que, embora tenha como centralidade a educação, articula diversas secretarias da prefeitura e promove benefícios e oportunidades sociais às crianças, adolescentes e aos demais moradores da cidade que extrapolam o aspecto educacional. Para a sua operacionalização, a Prefeitura desenvolve parcerias com atores de diversas naturezas. O objetivo dessa dissertação foi compreender de que maneira o Bairro-Escola de Nova Iguaçu, especialmente seus programas, projetos e ações culturais, contribui para o desenvolvimento local. No que diz respeito à metodologia, a estratégia de pesquisa adotada, foi o estudo de caso. Para a coleta dos dados primários e secundários foram adotadas duas técnicas, a saber: bibliográfica-documental; e entrevistas semi-estruturadas com alguns representantes do Bairro-Escola e da Secretaria de Cultura de Nova Iguaçu. Os resultados indicam que o Bairro-Escola aponta para um esforço de inclusão e desenvolvimento social por meio de programas e ações integradas. Em síntese, as contribuições ao desenvolvimento proporcionadas pelo Bairro-Escola, pelas vias da cultura, em Nova Iguaçu são: ampliação do acesso da população à leitura - criação de cinco bibliotecas ramais nas Escolas da Rede Pública Municipal e reequipamento de duas bibliotecas comunitárias; criação de uma Escola de ensino e formação em audiovisual (Escola Livre de Cinema), com núcleos em quatro bairros da cidade; criação de uma Escola Livre de Música Eletrônica, atendendo, inicialmente, a 400 crianças beneficiárias do Bairro-Escola; oportunidade de experimentação artística para quase 7.000 crianças e jovens; capacitação de 52 artistas locais em artes cênicas; criação de um grupo cultural formado por artistas locais (Grupo Nós da Baixada) - grupo de artes cênicas no bairro Cerâmica; oportunidade de estágio (renda e aperfeiçoamento profissional) para cerca de 90 jovens nas oficinas culturais; perspectiva de trabalho para 96 grupos artístico-culturais locais, por meio do convênio com o Ministério da Cultura; fortalecimento de grupos artístico-culturais locais, por meio de assessoramento para a profissionalização e desenvolvimento desses grupos.

Heranças patrimonialistas, (dis)funções burocráticas, práticas gerenciais e os novos arranjos do estado em rede: entendendo a configuração atual da administração pública brasileira

O objetivo do trabalho é compreender a configuração atual da administração pública brasileira a partir da identificação dos seus atributos caracterizadores, tomando como ponto de partida a rejeição da ideia de modelos rígidos e de ruptura entre esses modelos. Os caminhos teóricos percorridos, e que culminaram com a construção de um quadro teórico preliminar, contemplaram inicialmente: a análise histórico-conceitual das relações entre sociedade, Estado e administração pública; a análise da formação do Estado brasileiro desde o período colonial até os dias atuais; a apresentação das configurações da administração pública brasileira, consagradas pela literatura e seus respectivos atributos. Em seguida, foram resgatadas as bases teóricas da administração pública patrimonial, desde a ideia weberiana de dominação patrimonial até as contribuições de alguns interpretes do pensamento social brasileiro à luz da experiência nacional. Foram apresentadas as bases teóricas da administração pública burocrática, desde o tipo ideal weberiano de dominação racional-legal até a releitura do seu processo de implementação e desenvolvimento no Brasil. Também foram expostas as bases teóricas da administração pública gerencial, desde sua origem a nível mundial até os efeitos de seu marco inaugural no Brasil, o Plano Diretor da Reforma do Aparelho do Estado. A pesquisa, predominantemente qualitativa, assumiu três tipologias: bibliográfica, documental e de campo, permitindo o emprego da triangulação. A pesquisa de campo processou-se por meio de nove entrevistas, com roteiro semi-estruturado, com experts em administração pública brasileira. Para a pesquisa documental, foram selecionadas, primordialmente fontes primárias, com ênfase em documentos oficiais, mas também matérias e reportagens em sites, jornais e revistas. Após a análise do conteúdo das entrevistas e dos documentos, chegou-se a quatro eixos temáticos, cada qual com suas respectivas unidades de significado, que permitiram identificar os atributos presentes na administração pública brasileira e definir sua configuração, são eles: a) heranças patrimonialistas, sendo elas o mandonismo (a personalização do poder), o clientelismo, o favoritismo e a cultura da corrupção; b) (dis)funções burocráticas, sendo elas o formalismo, a hierarquia de cargos e funções, a profissionalização do quadro administrativo e a (im)pessoalidade); c) práticas gerenciais, sendo elas a busca da efetividade, as técnicas do management, a governança e a gestão transparente e participativa; e d) novos arranjos do Estado em rede, sendo elas o Estado Global, a cultura da virtualidade, a lógica das redes e o governo eletrônico. Esses eixos permitiram a construção de um quadro final de interpretações que demonstra a presença de atributos patrimonialistas, burocráticos e gerenciais na administração pública brasileira, e também atributos do que se chama de administração pública em rede, principal achado da pesquisa, o que explica a sua configuração múltipla.

Fragmented messages : a reading of L.P. Hartley's novel The go-between

A intenção deste trabalho é efetuar uma leitura do romance O Mensageiro, do autor inglês L.P. Hartley, na forma de uma jornada ao país estrangeiro do passado do protagonista-narrador. Tal leitura é uma espécie de convite aceito para a viagem, que esteticamente deixa sugestões sob a forma de truques, fragmentos de mensagens veladas, expressões ambíguas, sombras, vazios no caminho. Todavia, Mercúrio, o mensageiro dos antigos deuses, o protetor dos viajantes, o trapaceiro, é agora um ser indistinto, cuja imagem e função passou por grandes transformações ao longo da viagem até a modernidade. Guerras, restos de experiências traumáticas coletivas e pessoais são recuperadas na rota movediça do narrador melancólico, sob a forma de substância própria para a narração. Nietzsche e Walter Benjamin são companheiros na trajetória, provendo o suporte teórico básico para a viagem.

The Magic Of Reading

Trilha componente do jogo “Armas e Barões (http://www.loa.sead.ufscar.br/armasebaroes.html)” desenvolvido pela equipe do Laboratório de Objetos de Aprendizagem da Universidade Federal de São Carlos (LOA/UFSCar).

Reading comprehension in primary school: textbooks, curriculum and assessment

This study describes the reading comprehension processes present in the most widely sold textbooks at the fourth grade level in Portugal and discusses how they compare to international assessments of reading literacy. We adopted the Progress of International Reading Literacy Study framework to categorize the questions in the textbooks. Our analyses revealed that they focus heavily on the retrieval of explicitly stated information to the detriment of higher level comprehension skills. Portuguese fourth grade textbooks rarely challenge students to make connections between their knowledge and the ideas in the texts and to adopt a critical and evaluative reading stance. This is in sharp contrast to what students are asked to do in the Progress of International Reading Literacy Study, conducted every five years since 2001, and it may help explain the poor results Portuguese students have in national assessment and in PISA. The findings are discussed in light of the curriculum frameworks currently adopted in Portugal and suggestions are made as to how we can improve reading literacy achievement.

O descompasso de uma experiência: avaliação do Programa Habitar Brasil na Comunidade África-Natal/RN

This research deals with the evaluation of the Programa do Governo Federal para Urbanização de Favelas Habitar Brasil(1993) carried out in the Africa slum - Redinha neighbourhood in Natal-Rn. This study carried out in period from 2005 to 2006 searches to identify the effects of the actions proposed by Program in 1993-1994 about the current urbanistic configuration of the Africa community. It analyzes the effectiveness in the process of achievement of the considered objectives to habitation, communitity equipments, infrastructure and agrarian regularization. On the evaluation process, it has been as reference the works developed by Adauto Cardoso (2004), Blaine Worthen (2004), Ronaldo Garcia (2001) and Rosângela Paz (2006). About the Habitational Policy with approach to the Urbanistic Right and the right to the housing, the reflections by Raquel Rolnik, Nabil Bonduki, Ermínia Maricato, Saule Júnior, Betânia de Moraes Alfonsin and Edésio Fernandes are main references. To gauge the execution of the objectives proposed by Habitar Brasil in 1993, it has searched in the documentary data of the time and in information gotten in interviews with technicians that had participated of the program, consistent references on what was considered, what was executed and the process of the intervention of Habitar Brasil in the Africa community. The area analysis in 2005-2006 has developed on the base of the urbanistic survey of the current situation from the four performance lines of the Program: habitation, infrastructure, community equipments and agrarian regularization, with a current urbanistic evaluation of Africa considering the intervention carried out in 1993 and 1994. The study points out the context of Brazilian Habitational Policy where the Programa Habitar Brasil was launched, explaining the main principles of the Program. In terms of local, it empahsizes the administrative-political factors that had contributed so that Natal-Rn city has been pioneering in the resources captation of Habitar Brazil (1993). Considering Habitar Brazil in Africa, the work argues and presents the intervention diagnosis and the proposal, developed by Program in 1993 evidencing the local problem of the time. After that, it makes a current reading of the area, identifying in 2006 representative elements of Habitar Brasil (1993-1994) for the Africa community. It identifies significant advances in the constitution of the institucional apparatus of the plaining system of Habitation of Social Interest for the city of Natal and points the fragilities in the implementation of the urban infrastructure actions and above all in the achievement of the objectives of the agrarian regularization

A etnopoética de Iracema: diálogo, ciência e literatura

Literary works are thought provokers that make it possible to access several forms to view the world and reality. They provide diversified points of view and infinite connections. In a particular way, among all the other forms of art expression literature is considered to be the closest to life, once it is able to reconnect all human dimensions emotional, rational, mystic, personal, universal, corporal, historic, mythical. This thesis aims at offering some reflections about the frontiers and bridges between science and literature aiming at understanding the complexity that guides them. It presents a new reading of Iracema novel: Ceará tale of José de Alencar from a meticulous incursion through new ways and natural spaces interwoven by Alencar. It tries to hear the echoes of this indianist novel in the university students today. In a broader context, it creates arguments that question the multiple threadsthat join science and literature so that a science of complexity arises distinguishing but not separating the innumerous narratives about the world. For this purpose, this thesis has as interlocutors: Antonio Candido, Charles P. Snow, Edgar Morin, Emilio Ciurana, Fritjof Capra, George Steiner, Ilya Prigogine, Isabelle Stengers, Roger Chartier, Roland Barthes. The plot presented here does not limit the novel to science, but makes it a rereading of the word, of life, once this is the raw material of books. As a methodological strategy, we rebuilt Iracema´s character trips in a way to update the novel, resulting in the video documentary Iracema ways: the arid and remote interior, the plateau, the sea. Iracema novel and character enhancing dialogs that allow the dichotomy rupture between two cultures (Charles P. Snow), recognizing they are not incommunicable and revealing the core argument of the thesis: Iracema belongs to a complex category. It is a hybrid novel that is far, far away from that bluish plateau in the horizon

Itinerário educacional de uma aluna cega e a busca pela imagem adaptada

The scope of this study directs an investigation in search of how the blind person learns knowledge at school mediated by the image in context of an inclusive education and how it can be (or is) triggered by the adaptation of images to the tactile seizure of the blind person and his correlative process of reading. To achieve this intent we choose a qualitative approach of research and opted for the modality of case study, based on the empirical field of a public school in the city of Cruzeta, RN and as a the main subject a congenitally blind female student enrolled in high school there, focusing, often, on the discipline of geography in its words mapping. Our procedures for construction of data are directly involved to the documentary analysis of open reflective interview and observation. The base guiding theory of our assessments is located in the current understanding about the human psychological development of its educational process inside an inclusive perspective, of contemporary conceptions about the visual disability as well of image as a cultural product. Accordingly, the human person is a concrete subject, whose development is deeply marked by the culture, historically built by human society. This subject regardless of his specific features, grasping the world in an interactive and immediate way, internalising and producing culture. In this thinking, we believe that the blind person perceives in multiple senses the stimuli of his environment and acts in the world toward his integration into the social environment. The image as a product of culture, historically and socially determined, appears as a sign conventionally used as an icon that in itself concentrates knowledge of which the student who does not realize visually himself and his surroundings cannot be excluded. In this direction, the inclusive educational process must build conditions of access to knowledge for all students without distinction, including access to the interpretation of the images originally intended for the seizure strictly visual to other perceptive models. Based in this theory and adopting principles of content analysis, we circulated inside the interpretation of the data constructed from the analysis of documents, from the subject speeches, from records of the observation made in the classroom and other notes of the field daily. In the search for pictures on the school contents, adapted to the tactile seizure of blind student, was seen little and not systematic in practice and teaching at the school. It showed us the itinerary of the student life marked by a succession of supports, most of the time inappropriate and pioneers in cooling the construction of her autonomy. It also showed us the tensions and contradictions of a school environment, supposedly inclusive, that stumbles in search of its intent, in the attitudinal and cumulative barriers brought, because of its aggravating maintenance. These findings arose of crossing data around of a categorization that gives importance to 1) Concepts regarding the school inclusion, 2) Elements of the school organization, educational proposal and teaching practice, 3) Meaning of the visual image as the object of knowledge, 4) Perception in multiple senses and 5) Development and learning of the blind person before impositions of the social environment. In light of these findings we infer that it must be guaranteed to the disabled person removal of the attitudinal barriers that are against his full development and the construction of his autonomy. In that sense, should be given opportunity to the student with visual disability, similarly to all students, not only access to school, but also the dynamics of a school life efficient, that means the seizure of knowledge in all its modalities, including the imagery. To that end, there is a need of the continued training of teachers, construction of a support network in response to all needs of students, and the opportunity to development of reading skills beyond a perspective eminently focused in the sight

A história do centro de educação integrada Monsenhor Honório: surgimento e contribuições (Macau /RN - 1956 1966)

The present study objective to construct to the Education‟s History of Centro de Educação Integrada Monsenhor Honório in Macau, in the state of the Rio Grande do Norte. By means of the examination of this Institution of education, we intend to analyze its educative practical in the Fifties years, that this was the first one to offer gymnasial course and, over all, for having formed doctors, engineers, teachers, bachelors and economists in the city and the region during five decades of functioning. For this we use the records as documentary sources available in the institution, in newspapers and in public and private archives in the capital and the interior, beyond interview with former-employees, former-pupils and people who had participated of its creation and, consequently, they had made and they are part of this history. The institution‟s history helped to us to comment the reading of Macau‟s education, propitiating us reflections about pedagogical practical, methods of teaching and school regiment, in the perspective to understand a past still so present and all process for which passed the education, in the context of the proper Macau‟s history. The search results lead us to evidence that the creation of this school, in 1956, represented a landmark in the education of this municipal district, contributing of decisive form in the formation of the macauenses