ROBERT PAGÈS

AN ENRICHING RECOVERY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE IN BRAZIL

Abstract

This work aims to integrate into the debate of Brazilian Information Science the work of Robert Pagès (1919-2007), a French philosopher, documentalist, social psychologist, and political activist with academic and practical engagement in all the themes to which he devoted himself. Student, and later, interlocutor of Suzanne Briet in Documentation studies, he developed and operated a sophisticated documentation service at the Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale at Sorbonne Université, which he founded and directed for three decades. Making use of the exploratory method and the bibliographic technique, this work presents the following contributions by Pagès: the conceptualization of document as any object whose primary use is to be interpreted, serving as a psychic equivalent or reminder of other objects; the documentary language Code Documentaire (CODOC), conceived and implemented by Pagès in his laboratory, which anticipated foundational studies of this type of instrument; and the idea of documentation as the infrastructure of culture. It is considered that there is still much to be explored regarding Robert Pagès' proposals, but it is hoped to contribute to the promotion of reflections in the historical-conceptual and political-social dimensions of the field.