Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
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Contents
[hide]
1Abstract definitions
2Kinds
3Drafting
4History
5In law
6See also
7References
8Further reading
Abstract definitions[edit]
The concept of "document" has been defined[by whom?] as "any concrete or symbolic indication,
preserved or recorded, for reconstructing or for proving a phenomenon, whether physical or
mental."[1]
An often cited article concludes that "the evolving notion of document" among Jonathan
Priest, Otlet, Briet, Schürmeyer, and the other documentalists increasingly emphasized whatever
functioned as a document rather than traditional physical forms of documents. The shift to digital
technology would seem to make this distinction even more important. Levy's thoughtful analyses
have shown that an emphasis on the technology of digital documents has impeded our
understanding of digital documents as documents (e.g., Levy, 1994[2]). A conventional document,
such as a mail message or a technical report, exists physically in digital technology as a string of
bits, as does everything else in a digital environment. As an object of study, it has been made
into a document. It has become physical evidence by those who study it.
"Document" is defined in library and information science and documentation science as a
fundamental, abstract idea: the word denotes everything that may be represented or
memorialized in order to serve as evidence. The classic example provided by Suzanne Briet is
an antelope: "An antelope running wild on the plains of Africa should not be considered a
document[;] she rules. But if it were to be captured, taken to a zoo and made an object of study,
it has been made into a document. It has become physical evidence being used by those who
study it. Indeed, scholarly articles written about the antelope are secondary documents, since the
antelope itself is the primary document."[3] This opinion has been interpreted as an early
expression of actor–network theory.
Kinds[edit]
Documents are sometimes classified as secret, private, or public. They may also be described
as drafts or proofs. When a document is copied, the source is denominated the "original".
Standards are accepted for specific applications in various fields, e.g.:
Drafting[edit]
The page layout of a document is the manner in which information is graphically arranged in the
space of the document, e.g., on a page. If the appearance of the document is of concern, page
layout is generally the responsibility of a graphic designer. Typography concerns the design of
letter and symbol forms and their physical arrangement in the document
(see typesetting). Information design concerns the effective communication of information,
especially in industrial documents and public signs. Simple textual documents may not require
visual design and may be drafted only by an author, clerk, or transcriber. Forms may require a
visual design for their initial fields, but not to complete the forms.
History[edit]
Traditionally, the medium of a document was paper and the information was applied to it in ink,
either by hand writing (to make a manuscript) or by mechanical process (e.g., a printing
press or laser printer). Today, some short documents also may consist of sheets of
paper stapledtogether.
Historically, documents were inscribed with ink on papyrus (starting in ancient Egypt)
or parchment; scratched as runes or carved on stone using a sharp tool, e.g., the Tablets of
Stone described in the Bible; stamped or incised in clay and then baked to make clay tablets,
e.g., in the Sumerian and other Mesopotamian civilizations. The papyrus or parchment was often
rolled into a scroll or cut into sheets and bound into a codex (book).
Contemporary electronic means of memorializing and displaying documents include:
See also[edit]
Archive
Book
Documentation
History of the book
Realia (library science)
References[edit]
1. Jump up^ Briet. 1951. 7. Quoted in Buckland, 1991.
2. Jump up^ Levy, D. M. "Fixed or Fluid? Document Stability and
New Media." 1994. In European Conference on Hypertext
Technology 1994 Proceedings, pp. 24–31. New York: Association
for Computing Machinery. Retrieved 18 October 2011
from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.119
.8813&rep=rep1&type=pdf
3. Jump up^ Buckland, M. "What Is a Digital Document?" 1998.
In Document Numérique Paris. 2(2). [1].
Further reading[edit]
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media related
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