LIBRARIES IN THE MANAGEMENT AND REGULATORY DOCUMENTS OF FEDERAL INSTITUTE OF CEARÁ

Abstract

This study addresses strategic planning at the Federal Institute of Ceará in the context of its libraries. It identifies how libraries are considered and what prerogatives regarding them exist in the Institute’s management and regulatory documents. It uses bibliographic and documentary research as methodological procedures, with a qualitative approach. It consists of the documentary analysis of nine institutional documents of the Federal Institute of Ceará. In the data analysis, it finds that the libraries are mentioned superficially in the Institute’s work plans and, thus, are separate in the grouping of strategies and construction of objectives aligned with the demands, potentialities and limitations of the institution observed in the strategic planning. The negligible actions related to the libraries identified are isolated initiatives by some campuses, not considering the Library System as a whole. We conclude that, although the analyzed documents are important tools for management and planning in an institution, the presence or absence of libraries in these documents does not dispense their responsibility to prepare their own planning; and that this absence, or the superficial indication of it, place them in a scenario of fragility and uncertainties, compromising the advancement of these information units, whether related to the organizational and physical structure, or related to human resources or the collection available.