Uma visão geral sobre a atuação das editoras universitárias no contexto da educação superior pública brasileira.

Abstract

This research addresses university environments associated to the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge, in particular, the University Presses (EUs). The advance of new Information and Communication Technologies (TICs) is influencing significantly the editorial production of the EUs, promoting innovations in all the stages of the production chain of the university book. The aim of this study is to analyze the performance of university presses in the context of the Brazilian public higher education. The subject is relevant for the studies of Information Science, an interdisciplinary field which is related to the fields of Library Science, Management, Editing and Information Technology, highlighting the perception that there is a niche to be exploited by the professionals of this field. For the development of this study, the methodology involved a quantitative and qualitative approach, using an electronic questionnaire (Google Docs), with open and closed questions, sent to 47 managers of Brazilian university presses, from February 18 to March 18, 2016, receiving in return, 16 answered questionnaires. The research was approved by the Committee for Ethics in Research (CEP) of the Federal University of the “Triângulo Mineiro” (UFTM), with the favourable report number 1.276.045, dated 13th of October, of 2015. It was shown that some EUs are strategically organized to attend the demands for publication of informational resources, and others, are gradually entering the electronic publishing scenario, by means of innovations provided by the new TICs, such as the production of e-books and changes in their forms of communication, dissemination and commercialization. Print on demand is still an innovation which is adopted in very few cases among the EUs, and needs to be reconsidered. The importance of the Brazilian Association of University Presses (ABEU) in the implementation of the current Brazilian printing scenario was also highlighted. It is possible to conclude that the results presented allow for the managers of the Higher Education Institutions to observe, make comparisons and adaptations to implant or implement new university presses, based on the experience of the EUs which are already incorporated in the Brazilian university publishing market.