This is a preprint of an article published in the Journal of the American Society of

Information Science 48, no. 9 (Sept 1997): 804-809, published for the American
Society for Information Science by Wiley and available online to ASIS members
and other registered users at http://www.interscience.wiley.com/. Also, reprinted
in Hahn, T. B. & M. Buckland, eds. Historical Studies in Information Science.
Medford, NJ: Information Today, 1998, 215-220. This text may vary slightly
from the published version.

What is a "document"?
Michael K. Buckland
School of Information Management & Systems, University of California,
Berkeley, CA 94720-4600

Abstract: Ordinarily the word "document" denotes a textual record. Increasingly

sophisticated attempts to provide access to the rapidly growing quantity of
available documents raised questions about which should be considered a
"document". The answer is important for any definition of the scope of
Information Science. Paul Otlet and others developed a functional view of
"document" and discussed whether, for example, sculpture, museum objects, and
live animals, could be considered "documents". Suzanne Briet equated
"document" with organized physical evidence. These ideas appear to resemble
notions of "material culture" in cultural anthropology and "object-as-sign" in
semiotics. Others, especially in the USA (e.g. Jesse Shera and Louis Shores) took
a narrower view. New digital technology renews old questions and also old
confusions between medium, message, and meaning.

Introduction

What is a document? What could not be a document? Ordinarily information

storage and retrieval systems have been concerned with text and text-like records
(e.g. names, numbers, and alphanumeric codes). The present interest in
"multimedia" reminds us that not all phenomena of interest in information
science are textual or textlike. We may need to deal with any phenomena that
someone may wish to observe: events, processes, images, and objects as well as
texts.
This paper reconstructs and comments on the development of thought on this
topic with an emphasis on the ideas of continental European documentalists in
the first half of this century. If "documentation" (a term that included information
storage and retrieval systems) is what you do to or with documents, how far
could you push the meaning of "document" and what were the limits to
"documentation"? The work of European pioneers such as Paul Otlet and
Suzanne Briet has received renewed attention in recent years and has been related
to discussion of physical forms of "information" (e.g. "information-as-thing"
(Buckland 1991a, 1991b)). These issues are important because mechanical
information systems can only operate on physical representations of
"information". This background is relevant to the clarification of the nature and
scope of information systems.

From document to "documentation"

In the late 19th century there was increasing concern with the rapid increase in
the number of publications, especially of scientific and technical literature.
Continued effectiveness in the creation, dissemination, utilization of recorded
knowledge was seen as a needing new techniques for managing the growing
literature.

The "managing" that was needed had several aspects. Efficient and reliable
techniques were needed for collecting, preserving, organizing (arranging),
representing (describing), selecting (retrieving), reproducing (copying), and
disseminating documents. The traditional term for this activity was
"bibliography". However, "bibliography" was not entirely satisfactory for two
reasons: (i) It was felt that something more than traditional "bibliography" was
needed, e.g. techniques for reproducing documents; and (ii) "Bibliography" also
had other well-established meanings, especially historical (or analytical)
bibliography which is concerned with traditional techniques of book-production.

Early in the 20th century the word "documentation" was increasingly adopted in
Europe instead of "bibliography" to denote the set of techniques needed to
manage this explosion of documents. Woledge (1983) provides a detailed
account of the evolving usage of "documentation" and related words in English,
French and German. From about 1920 "documentation" was increasingly
accepted as a general term to encompass bibliography, scholarly information
services ("wissenschaftliche Aufklärung (Auskunft)"), records management, and
archival work. (Donker Duyvis 1959. See also Björkbom 1959; Godet 1938).

There are numerous writings on the definition, scope, and nature of

"documentation", much of it concerned with the relationships between
documentation, bibliography, and librarianship. Unfortunately, many of this
literature, like much of the later discussion of information science and
librarianship, is undermined by the authors' attempts to create or amplify
distinctions where the differences are not really fundamental but, rather, a matter
of emphasis.

Loosjes (1962, pp. 1-8) explained documentation in historical terms: Systematic

access to written texts, he wrote, became more difficult after the invention of
printing resulted in the proliferation of texts; scholars were increasingly obliged
to delegate tasks to specialists; assembling and maintaining collections was the
field of librarianship; bibliography was concerned with the descriptions of
documents; the delegated task of creating access for scholars to the topical
contents of documents, especially of parts within printed documents and without
limitation to particular collections, was documentation.

After about 1950 more elaborate terminology, such as "information science",

"information storage and retrieval", and "information management", increasing
replaced the word "documentation".

From documentation back to "document"

The problems created by the increase in printed documents led to development of

the techniques of documentation. However, the rise of documentation led, in
turn, to a new and intriguing question that received little direct attention then or
since.

Documentation was a set of techniques developed to manage significant (or

potentially significant) documents, meaning, in practice, printed texts. But there
was (and is) no theoretical reason why documentation should be limited to texts,
let alone printed texts. There are many other kinds of signifying objects in
addition to printed texts. And if documentation can deal with texts that are not
printed, could it not also deal with documents that are not texts at all? How
extensively could documentation be applied? Stated differently, if the term
"document" were used in a specialized meaning as the technical term to denote
the objects to which the techniques of documentation could be applied, how far
could the scope of documentation be extended. What could (or could not) be a
document? The question was, however, rarely formulated in these terms.

An early development was to extend the notion of document beyond written

texts, a usage to be found in major English and French dictionaries. (For
historical background on "document" see also Sagredo Fernández & Izquierdo
Arroyo (1982)). "Any expression of human thought" was a frequently used
definition of "document" among documentalists. In the USA, the phrases "the
graphic record" and "the generic book" were widely used. This was convenient
for extending the scope of the field to include pictures and other graphic and
audio-visual materials. Paul Otlet (1868-1944), is known for his observation that
documents could be three dimensional, which enabled the inclusion of sculpture.
From 1928, museum objects were likely to be included by documentalists within
definitions of "document" (e.g. Dupuy-Briet 1933).

The overwhelming practical concern of documentalists was with printed

documents, so the question of how far the definition of "document" could be
extended received little direct attention. Nevertheless, the occasional thoughtful
writer would touch on the topic, perhaps because interested in some novel form
of signifying object, such as educational toys, or because of a desire to
generalize.

Paul Otlet: Objects as documents

Otlet extended the definition of "document" half-way through his Traité de

documentation of 1934. Graphic and written records are representations of ideas
or of objects, he wrote, but the objects themselves can be regarded as
"documents" if you are informed by observation of them. As examples of such
"documents" Otlet cites natural objects, artifacts, objects bearing traces of human
activity (such as archaeological finds), explanatory models, educational games,
and works of art (Otlet 1934, p. 217; also Otlet 1990, pp. 153 & 197, and
Izquierdo Arroyo 1995).

In 1935 Walter Schuermeyer wrote: "Nowadays one understands as a document

any material basis for extending our knowledge which is available for study or
comparison." ("Man versteht heute unter einem Dokument jede materielle
Unterlage zur Erweiterung unserer Kenntnisse, die einem Studium oder
Vergleich zugaenglich ist." Schuermeyer 1935, p. 537).

Similarly, the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation, an agency of

the League of Nations, developed, in collaboration with Union Français des
Organismes de Documentation, technical definitions of "document" and related
technical terms in English, French and German versions and adopted:

"Document : Toute base de connaissance, fixée matériellement, susceptible d'être

utilisée pour consultation, étude ou preuve. Exemples: manuscrits, imprimés,
représentations graphiques ou figurés, objets de collections, etc...
Document : Any source of information, in material form, capable of being used
for reference or study or as an authority. Examples : manuscripts, printed matter,
illustrations, diagrams, museum specimens, etc....

Dokument : Dokument is jeder Gegenstand, der zur Belehrung, zum Studium

oder sur Beweisfuehrung dienen kann, z.B. Handschriften, Drucke, graphische
oder bildliche Darstellungen, usw...." (Anon. 1937: 234)

Suzanne Briet: Physical evidence as document

One individual, who had, for years, been involved in discussions of the nature of
documentation and documents, addressed the extension of the meaning of
"document" with unusual directness. Suzanne Briet (1894-1989), also known as
Suzanne Dupuy and as Suzanne Dupuy-Briet was active as a librarian and
documentalist from 1924 to 1954 (Lemaître & Roux-Fouillet 1989; Buckland
1995).

In 1951 Briet published a manifesto on the nature of documentation, Qu'est-ce

que la documentation, which starts with the assertion that "A document is
evidence in support of a fact." ("Un document est une preuve à l'appui d'un fait"
(Briet, 1951, 7). She then elaborates: A document is "any physical or symbolic
sign, preserved or recorded, intended to represent, to reconstruct, or to
demonstrate a physical or conceptual phenomenon". ("Tout indice concret ou
symbolique, conservé ou enregistré, aux fins de représenter, de reconstituer ou de
prouver un phénomène ou physique ou intellectuel." p. 7.) The implication is that
documentation should not be viewed as being concerned with texts but with
access to evidence.

The antelope as document

Briet enumerates six objects and asks if each is a document.

Object --- Document?

Star in sky -- No
Photo of star -- Yes
Stone in river -- No
Stone in museum -- Yes
Animal in wild -- No
Animal in zoo -- Yes

There is discussion of 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.
Not only that, but scholarly articles written about the antelope are secondary
documents, since the antelope itself is the primary document.

Briet's rules for determining when an object has become a document are not
made clear. We infer, however, from her discussion that:

1. There is materiality: Physical objects and physical signs only;

2. There is intentionality: It is intended that the object be treated as evidence;

3. The objects have to be processed: They have to be made into documents; and,
we think,

4. There is a phenomenological position: The object is perceived to be a

document.

This situation is reminiscent of discussions of how an image is made art by

framing it as art. Did Briet mean that just as "art" is made art by "framing" (i.e.
treating) it as art, so an object becomes a "document" when it is treated as a
document, i.e. as a physical or symbolic sign, preserved or recorded, intended to
represent, to reconstruct, or to demonstrate a physical or conceptual
phenomenon? The sources of these views are not made clear, though she does
mention in this context her friend Raymond Bayer, a professor of philosophy at
the Sorbonne, who specialized aesthetics and phenomenology.

Ron Day (1996) has suggested, very plausibly, that Briet's use of the word
"indice" is important, that it is indexicality--the quality of having been placed in
an organized, meaningful relationship with other evidence--that gives an object
its documentary status.

Donker Duyvis: A spiritual dimension to documents

Frits Donker Duyvis (1894-1961), who succeded Paul Otlet as the central figure
in the International Federation for Documentation, epitomized the modernist
mentality of the documentalists in his dedication to the trinity of scientific
management, standardization, and bibliographic control as complementary and
mutually reinforcing bases for achieving progress (Anon., 1964). Yet Donker
Duyvis was not a materialist. He adopted Otlet's view that a document was an
expression of human thought, but he did so in terms of his interest in the work of
Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), founder of Anthroposophy, a spiritual movement
based on the notion that there is a spiritual world comprehensible to pure thought
and accessible only to the highest faculties of mental knowledge. As a result,
Donker Duyvis was sensitive to what we might now call the cognitive aspects of
the medium of the message. He wrote that:

"A document is the repository of an expressed thought. Consequently its contents

have a spiritual character. The danger that blunt unification of the outer form
exercises a repercussion on the contents in making the latter characterless and
impersonal, is not illusory.... In standardizing the form and layout of documents
it is necessary to restrict this activity to that which does not affect the spiritual
contents and which serves to remove a really irrational variety." (Donker Duyvis,
1942. Translation from Voorhoeve, 1964, 48)

Ranganathan: Micro-thought on a flat surface

The Indian theorist S. R. Ranganathan, usually so metaphysical, took a curiously

narrow and pragmatic position on the definition of "document", resisting even the
inclusion of audiovisual materials such as radio and television communications.
"But they are not documents; because they are not records on materials fit for
handling or preservation. Statues, pieces of china, and the material exhibits in a
museum were mentioned because they convey thought expressed in some way.
But none of these is a document, since it is not a record on a more or less flat
surface." (Ranganathan, 1963).

Ranganathan's view of "document" as a synonym for "embodied micro thought"

on paper "or other material, fit for physical handling, transport across space, and
preservation through time" was adopted by the Indian Standards Institution
(1963, 24), with a note explaining that the term "document" "is now extended in
use to include any embodied thought, micro or macro and whether the physical
embodiment is exclusive to one work or is shared by more than one work."

Others, also, took a limited view of what documents were. In the USA, two
highly influential authors opted for a view of documents that was only an
extension of textual records to include audiovisual communications. Louis
Shores popularized the phrase "the generic book" (e.g. Shores, 1977) and Jesse
H. Shera used "the graphic record" with much the same meaning (e.g. Shera,
1972). Shera was gratuitously dismissive of Briet's notion of documents as
evidence.

Anthropology: Material culture

Otlet was explicit that his view of "document" included archaeological finds,
traces of human activity, and other objects not intended as communication.
"Collections of objects brought together for purposes of preservation, science and
education are essentially documentary in character (Museums and Cabinets,
collections of models, specimens and samples). These collections are created
from items occurring in nature rather than being delineated or described in
words; they are three dimensional documents." (Otlet, 1920. Translation from
Otlet 1990, 197).

The notion of objects as documents resembles the notion of "material culture"

among cultural anthropologists "for whom artifacts contributed important
evidence in the documentation and interpretation of the American experience."
(Ames 1985, ix) and in museology (e.g. Kaplan 1994; Pearce 1990).

Semiotics: "Text" and "object-as-sign"

Briet's ideas concerning the nature of a "document" invite discussion in relation

to semiotics. In this context we note Dufrenne's discussion of the distinction
between aesthetic objects and signifying objects:

"The function of such [signifying] objects is not to subserve some action or to

satisfy some need but to dispense knowledge. We can, of course, call all objects
signifying in some sense. However, we must single out those objects which do
more than signify merely in order to prepare us for some action and which are
not used up merely in the fulfillment of the task. Scientific texts, catechisms,
photograph albums, and, on a more modest scale, signposts are all signs whose
signification engages us in an activity only after having first furnished us with
information." (Dufrenne 1973, 114).

We can observe that by the inclusion of museum and other "found" objects,
Briet's "any physical or symbolic sign" appears to include both human signs and
natural signs. Others developed the notion of "object-as-sign". Roland Barthes,
for example, in discussing "the semantics of the object", wrote that objects
"function as the vehicle of meaning: in other words, the object effectively serves
some purpose, but it also serves to communicate information: we might sum it up
by saying that there is always a meaning which overflows the object's use."
(Barthes, 1988, 182). We can note the widespread use of the word "text" to
characterize patterns of social phenomena not made of words or numerals, but
there seems to have been relatively little attention to the overlap between
semiotics and information science. (See, however, the careful discussion by
Warner 1990.)
Comments

One difference between the views of the documentalists discussed above and
contemporary views is the emphasis that would now be placed on the social
construction of meaning, on the viewer's perception of the significance and
evidential character of documents. "Relevance", a central concept in information
retrieval studies, is now generally considered to be situational and ascribed by the
viewer. In semiotic terminology,

"...signs are never natural objects... The reason is simply that the property of
being a sign is not a natural property that can be searched for and found, but a
property that is given to objects, be they natural or artificial, through the kind of
use that is made of them. Both as objects and as means, signs have to be treated
as something invented, and in this sense they are correlated to actions." (Sebeok
1994, v. 1, p. 18).

Briet's notion of documents as evidence can occur in at least two ways. One
purpose of information systems is to store and maintain access to whatever
evidence has been cited as evidence of some assertion. Another approach is for
the person in a position to organize artefacts, samples, specimens, texts, or other
objects to consider what it could tell one about the world that produced it, and
then, having developed some theory of its significance to place the object in
evidence, to offer it as evidence by the way it is arranged, indexed or presented.
In this manner information systems can be used not only in finding material that
already is in evidence, but also in arranging material so that someone may be
able to make use of it as (new) evidence for some purpose. (Wilson 1995).

The evolving notion of "document" among 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). A conventional document, such as a mail message or a
technical report, exists physically in digital technology as a string of bits, but so
does everything else in a digital environment. In this sense, any distinctiveness of
a document as a physical form is further diminished and discussion of "What is a
digital document?" becomes even more problematic unless we remember the path
of reasoning underlying the largely forgotten discussions of Otlet's objects and
Briet's antelope.

Postscript: Documenting the antelope

Briet's discussion of an antelope as a document is quite specific: The antelope
was from Africa; it was a newly discovered species; and it was brought to the
Jardin des Plantes of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. Her
account reads as if she were referring to an actual antelope known to her. In
1947, not long before Briet's book appeared, the Muséum National d'Histoire
Naturelle did announce the discovery of a new African antelope - tragelaphus
scriptus reidae, a subspecies of bushbuck - but there is no indication that a
specimen was taken to Paris (Babault 1947). The documentation of antelopes
reveals that very few new species were discovered during Briet's lifetime and
documentary evidence of the Briet's antelope has eluded us. Appropriately, the
word "antelope" itself, we found, is thought by some to derive from the Ethiopian
word for the elusive unicorn.

Acknowledgements: I am grateful for the helpful comments of Ron Day, W.

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