This article discusses the relevance of experience to the construction of new knowledge, emphasizing the historical evolution of this concept and its role in the learning process, as well as in the development of seeking and using information for the production of scientific knowledge. The basic hypothesis is that the more qualified in managing information is the acquired experience of researchers, the more important can be the impact to the produced knowledge. It also considers that the conscience of experience may also be a way for human being to become ethically responsible for the cycled process of scientific production, since the modification or transformation of science happens in an inseparable world of being, part of the human body in which the mind is inserted. As a result, the discussion on experience involves the cognitive aspects and the ethical dimension of the ways man is related to nature and his capacity of transforming it.
information seeking and using; experience; ethics; informational literacy; scientific knowledge; learning