Digital humanities in Brazilian Information Science: a scientific production analysis

Abstract

Digital technology in human activities mobilizes contributions and attention from different scientific fields. The phenomenon characterized as digital humanities is a contemporary tool. It significantly alters practices in everyday life, as well as bringing together innovation in different social segments. It is not yet a fully consolidated field of study but its insertion in several areas of knowledge is notorious for providing broad benefits to society. Nevertheless, there is such a small exploration of how digital humanities can act regarding their transversely with Information Science. The objective is to analyze Information Science research of Brazilian authors that contemplate the digital humanities as object of study. From a theoretical-bibliographical point of view it has been verified how Information Science has incorporated the transdisciplinary concept of the digital humanities drawing a conceptual and epistemological panorama regarding the convergence of fields. The research analyses papers presented at Encontro Nacional de Pesquisa em Ciência da Informação ENANCIB (Brazilian national meeting on research in Information Science) and its relevance in promoting research and advanced studies of the area in Brazil. The methodology has a qualitative aspect applied to the technique of content analysis for interpretation and production of inferences. The results show that the insertion of digital humanities in the Brazilian research of information science is scarce, but it collaborates with the development of the subject in a consistent way. We conclude that there are several aspects within the digital humanities in convergence with the information field. Such convergence is interesting and is likely to grow in the coming years.