The Graduate Program in Information Science (PPGCI) has an area of concentration in Information, Mediation and Culture and is structured around three lines of research: Social memory, heritage and production of knowledge; Public policies and information organization and Users, management of knowledge and information practices. The course seeks to bring together, in a transversal and explicit way, contributions from Archivology, Librarianship/Library Science and Museology, incorporating specific knowledge from these areas into its body.

The program’s relevance comes from providing an advanced and in-depth education, in which a multi-dimensional theoretical plan is articulated including: information culture, users and informational practices, social memory and heritage; public archival and informational policies and institutions (archives, libraries and museums), technological challenges and services, as well as technical intervention methods related to documents and information.

The program’s methodological plan is notable for its distinct processes of investigation, adaptation and construction of models and techniques capable of supporting the development of research. Activities are carried out seeking solutions related to complex problems, characteristics of Information Science and related areas that demand a multidisciplinary approach. To broaden the educational experience in methodological and technical terms, the program makes use of the Multiuser Digital Humanities Laboratory. This laboratory’s purpose is to develop and apply research methods and techniques that lead to the production, systematization, organization and processing of information (databases, audiovisual material, interviews, among others) made available in digital format. Experience gained from experiments in the laboratory will be used to develop and provide a Portal of Digital Documentary Collections composed of: collaborative media, databases and electronic documents; specialized terminological databases (dictionaries, thesauruses and folksonomies), arising from and related to the different PPGCI students and researchers. The laboratory is currently in the implantation phase and in the 1st Semester of 2018 course year it will initiate its operations in the academic program.

The PPGCI education will also foster opportunities for contact with students from international research groups, through exchange projects that are currently being organized with students from European (France, Spain and Portugal), North American (Florida), Latin American (Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Costa Rica, Haiti) and African (Mozambique and Angola) Universities. Students will participate in these exchanges  through enrollment in “sandwich” Doctoral programs, participating in research groups with their advisors and attending speeches and seminars given by foreign professors and through their studying and working together with students from other countries who are getting their education at PPGCI.