Reading and library: paths to liberation

Abstract

This article aims to present a comprehensive approach to the act of reading and the library as the core institution in terms of the reading experience. Hence it goes through the act of reading the world and its relation with the language emancipatory contexts carried out by humanity - in which the purpose of communicating is the first interest, but it gains complexity and further perspectives as it embodies the multiple possibilities of contents provided by the experience of reading. Initially, such a perspective is stricted. As they confront different visions and understandings of the same object, new means of comprehension emerge through a combination of contexts, speakers, readers, and writers. This emancipatory path tracked by the reading experience consists of the dialogical relationship between the reader and the writer, both parting from different standpoints, but joining efforts to build possible interpretations of the texts and their circumstantial contexts. In this context, Systems of Information Recovery, mainly operated by libraries, are able to provide the access to those documentary items, i.e., a book, to the users, in this case, the readers. The article reflects the character of these systems which

are designed to proved and solve access needs, but often do take into consideration cognitive aspects to succeed. Finally, it concludes that Brazilian people still find it difficult to access information that will help strengthen the citizenship environment, in this regard the Public Library is identified as the institution which can enable the social and citizenship contexts. Its mission must overcome the safeguarding of collections: it must act in order to provide and diffuse useful and relevant information that will promote the means to emancipation.