Desafios e possibilidades da atividade mediadora do bibliotecário na normalização de trabalhos acadêmicos: o uso do LaTeX

Abstract

This study presents the librarian’s role in front of new users’ demand for which it has made necessary to know tools that have been available, as the LaTeX. In this respect, it aims to introduce and motivate librarians and students to use the LaTeX by understanding it under its structure and as a resource that has been used by the users of academic libraries in their works. So it was made a bibliographic research to apply the concepts through an action research, which was based on two strategies to collect data: from the observation of the structure of theses and dissertations on Physics and from tests that were made by using some LaTeX editors. This paper also discusses the importance of standardizing academic works by using the LaTeX and encouraging librarians to carry it out. Then, the main functions of the LaTeX are presented as a tool developed to edit complex texts and to define commands for citations and bibliographical references through the BibTeX format and the reference manager called JabRef. Thus, this study presents a proposal of template which was structured on ShareLaTeX, which is available online to edit and to share complex text. The template was developed according to the Brazilian standardization, which is managed by the Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas (ABNT), focusing on contributing to format technical and scientific works. Finally, it points out the importance of librarians to be prepared to attend new demand from users, mainly referring to the new ways to standardize academic works, taking the LaTeX as an example to be understood by librarians and to be used in academic libraries, according to specificities of each area of knowledge.