The subjective dimension of management and university libraries

Abstract

Recent research at UFMG's School of Information Science - undertaken by scholars such as Paula (2005; 2012), Araújo (2013) and Sá (2015) - has proven that it is possible to capture and understand the subjectivity present in decision-making processes through the clinical approach to information. This approach encourages an attentive look at information, capturing the symbolic-affective dimensions that permeate it, aiming for a more in-depth analysis of the -how‖ and -why‖ of the phenomena investigated. Through its use, this research aimed to investigate the possible constitutive participation of subjectivity in decision-making in the face of the challenges of library management at a federal university.  To this end, it used in-depth interviews as its data collection method and then analysed the content by investigating the processes of symbolization in the subjects' statements - reconstructing the real (the information collected) from the fragments (symbolic-affective dimensions) through which it is presented. Symbol dictionaries were used to aid this investigation and an exercise was carried out to amplify the meanings found in them, based on the statements of each interviewee and the context in which each one is inserted.  The analysis of the interviews revealed that the challenges reported by the managers are practically the same - user service, insufficient resources and, above all, people management -; what changes is the way each one deals with these contingencies - which in turn seems to interfere in the decision-making processes. It was observed that the data on managers' gender and age have little or no effect on the way they deal with the decision-making processes reported. On the other hand, it was noted that the experiences that each interviewee had - both in their family and professionally - until they reached the position, - the desires, limitations, experiences and affections of these subjects - seem to interfere in the way managers make decisions, with greater or lesser flexibility in complying with the rules, with more authority or more diplomacy, with greater or lesser emotional distance from the challenges faced.  It was also observed that decisions are made more intuitively than rationally, not only in urgent situations -created‖ by managers, but also in those where there are no pre-defined rules or requirements to comply with them. The presence of subjectivity in the management of university libraries was therefore evident.