Action research: an oportunity to generate knowledge based on the professional practice of librarians and archivists in Córdoba, Argentina.

Abstract

Librarians and archivists not only work with knowledge mediated by documents but in the course of their activities, they generate new knowledge about collections, the public and relationships between texts and people. These experiences are rarely systematized and published. As a consequence, the production of works in librarianship and archival science is low in comparison with the active practitioners. One option to overcome this situation is to disseminate research methods that allow the generation of new knowledge through practitioners. The purpose of this contribution is to present the methodology of action research as a viable method applicable in the professional practice of library and archival science. The first presents a bibliographical exploration to show characteristics, values, methodological options and applicability of action research in library and archival science. In the second part, an example is presented. The methodology described offers interesting possibilities to build theory from the professional practice of librarians and archivists that allows them to incorporate users in all stages of the research and to show theoretical foundations and values in order to improve infrastructures, services and activities of documentary institutions in the 21st century.