Document

For other uses, see Document (disambiguation). an emphasis on the technology of digital documents has
impeded our understanding of digital documents as doc-
uments (e.g., Levy, 1994[2] ). A conventional document,
A document is a written, drawn, presented or recorded
representation of thoughts. Originating from the Latin such as a mail message or a technical report, exists phys-
ically in digital technology as a string of bits, as does ev-
Documentum meaning lesson - the verb doce means to
teach, and is pronounced similarly, in the past it was usu- erything else in a digital environment. As an object of
study, it has been made into a document. It has become
ally used as a term for a written proof used as evidence.
In the computer age, a document is usually used to de- physical evidence by those who study it.
scribe a primarily textual le, along with its structure and
design, such as fonts, colors and additional images.
2 Types of documents
The modern term 'document' can no longer be dened
by it transmission medium (such as paper), following the
existence of electronic documents. 'Documentation' has Documents are sometimes classied as secret, private or
more meanings than a written or drawn presentation of public. They may also be described as a draft or proof.
thoughts. When a document is copied, the source is referred to as
the original.
The formal term 'document' is dened in Library and in-
formation science and in documentation science, as a ba- There are accepted standards for specic applications in
sic theoretical construct. It is everything which may be various elds, such as:
preserved or represented in order to serve as evidence
for some purpose. The classical example provided by Academic: thesis, paper, journal.
Suzanne Briet is an antelope: An antelope running wild
Business and accounting: Invoice, quote, RFP,
on the plains of Africa should not be considered a docu-
Proposal, Contract, Packing slip, Manifest, Report
ment, she rules. But if it were to be captured, taken to a
detailed & summary, Spread sheet, MSDS,
zoo and made an object of study, it has been made into
Waybill, Bill of Lading (BOL), Financial statement,
a document. It has become physical evidence being used
Nondisclosure agreement (NDA) or sometimes
by those who study it. Indeed, scholarly articles written
referred to as; Mutual nondisclosure agreement
about the antelope are secondary documents, since the
(MNDA).
antelope itself is the primary document. (Quoted from
[1]
Buckland, 1998 ). (This view has been seen as an early Law and politics: summons, certicate, license,
expression of what now is known as actornetwork the- gazette.
ory).
Government and industry: white paper, application
forms, user-guide.
1 The document concept Media and marketing: brief, mock-up, script.

The concept of document has been dened as Such standard documents can be created based on a
any concrete or symbolic indication, preserved or template.
recorded, for reconstructing or for proving a phe-
nomenon, whether physical or mental (Briet, 1951,
7; here quoted from Buckland, 1991). 3 Developing documents
A much-cited article asked what is a document[?]" and
concluded this way: The evolving notion of document The page layout of a document is the manner in which in-
among (Jonathan Priest). Otlet, Briet, Schrmeyer, and formation is graphically arranged in the document space
the other documentalists increasingly emphasized what- (e.g., on a page). If the appearance of the document
ever functioned as a document rather than traditional is of concern, page layout is generally the responsi-
physical forms of documents. The shift to digital tech- bility of a graphic designer. Typography deals with
nology would seem to make this distinction even more the design of letter and symbol forms, as well as their
important. Levys thoughtful analyses have shown that physical arrangement in the document (see typesetting).

1
2 7 REFERENCES

Information design focuses on the eective communica-
tion of information, especially in industrial documents
and public signs. Simple text documents may not require
a visual design and may be handled by an author, clerk
or transcriber. Forms may require a visual design for the
initial elds, but not to ll out the forms. Dedicated e-book device.
4 History
Desktop computer and monitor (or laptop, tablet
PC, etc.); optionally with a printer to obtain a hard
copy.
Personal digital assistant (PDA).
Electronic paper, typically, using the Portable Doc-
ument Format PDF.
Information appliances.
Digital audio players.
Radio and television service provider.

Digital documents usually have to adhere to a specic le

format in order to be useful.
That documents cannot be dened by their transmission
medium

5 In law
Documents in all forms are frequently found to be ma-
terial evidence in criminal and civil proceedings. The
forensic analysis of such a document falls under the scope
of questioned document examination. For the purpose of
cataloging and managing the large number of documents
that may be produced in the course of a lawsuit, Bates
numbering is often applied to all documents so that each
document has a unique, aribitrary identifying number.

6 See also
Realia (library science).
Subject (documents).

A birth certicate from 1859. Commission (document).

Form (document).
Traditionally, the medium of a document was paper and
the information was applied to it as ink, either by hand Constitutional documents.
(to make a hand-written document) or by a mechanical Identity document.
process (such as a printing press or, more recently, a laser
printer). Identity document forgery.
Through time, documents have also been written with
ink on papyrus (starting in ancient Egypt) or parchment;
scratched as runes or carved on stone using a sharp appa-
7 References
ratus (such as the Tablets of Stone described in the bible);
[1] Buckland, M. (1998). What is a digital document? In:
stamped or cut into clay and then baked to make clay
Document Numrique (Paris) 2(2), http://people.ischool.
tablets (e.g., in the Sumerian and other Mesopotamian berkeley.edu/~{}buckland/digdoc.html
civilisations). The paper, papyrus or parchment might be
rolled up as a scroll or cut into sheets and bound into a [2] Levy, D. M. (1994) . Fixed or uid? Document stabil-
book. Today short documents might also consist of sheets ity and new media. In European Conference on Hyper-
of paper stapled together. text Technology 1994 Proceedings, (pp. 2431) . New
York: Association for Computing Machinery. Retrieved
Modern electronic means of storing and displaying doc- 2011-10-18 from: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/
uments include: download?doi=10.1.1.119.8813&rep=rep1&type=pdf
 3

8 Further reading
Briet, S. (1951). Qu'est-ce que la documentation?
Paris: Documentaires Industrielles et Techniques.
Buckland, M. (1991). Information and information
systems. New York: Greenwood Press.

Frohmann, Bernd (2009). Revisiting what is a doc-

ument?", Journal of Documentation, 65(2), 291-
303.
Hjerppe, R. (1994). A framework for the descrip-
tion of generalized documents. Advances in Knowl-
edge Organization, 4, 173-180.

Houser, L. (1986). Documents: The domain of li-

brary and information science. Library and Infor-
mation Science Research, 8, 163-188.
Larsen, P.S. (1999). Books and bytes: Preserv-
ing documents for posterity. Journal of the Ameri-
can Society for Information Science, 50(11), 1020-
1027.
Lund, N. W. (2008). Document theory. Annual Re-
view of Information Science and Technology, 43,
399-432.

Riles, A. (Ed.) (2006). Documents: Artifacts of

Modern Knowledge. University of Michigan Press,
Ann Arbor, MI.
Schamber, L. (1996). What is a document? Re-
thinking the concept in uneasy times. Journal of the
American Society for Information Science, 47, 669-
671.
Signer, Beat: What is Wrong with Digital Docu-
ments? A Conceptual Model for Structural Cross-
Media Content Composition and Reuse, In Proceed-
ings of the 29th International Conference on Con-
ceptual Modeling (ER 2010), Vancouver, Canada,
November 2010.

Smith, Barry. How to Do Things with Docu-

ments, Rivista di Estetica, 50 (2012), 179-198.

Smith, Barry. Document Acts,in Anita

Konzelmann-Ziv, Hans Bernhard Schmid
(eds.), 2013. Institutions, Emotions, and Group
Agents.Contributions to Social Ontology (Philosoph-
ical Studies Series), Dordrecht: Springer
rom, A. (2007). The concept of information ver-
sus the concept of document. I: Document (re)turn.
Contributions from a research eld in transition. Ed.
By Roswitha Skare, Niels Windfeld Lund & An-
dreas Vrheim. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
(pp. 5372).
4 9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

9 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

9.1 Text
Document Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document?oldid=763618541 Contributors: Hfastedge, Patrick, Michael Hardy, Nixdorf,
Kku, Dcljr, Tregoweth, Andrewman327, Greenrd, Maximus Rex, Robbot, TimothyPilgrim, Pengo, Matt Gies, Kim Bruning, Tom har-
rison, Gamaliel, Pashute, Maroux, LiDaobing, Sam Hocevar, Neutrality, Addicted2Sanity, Eep, Shiftchange, Adambondy, Ivan Ba-
jlo, Xezbeth, Sietse Snel, Cmdrjameson, Maurreen, Comic, Hooperbloob, Nsaa, Jumbuck, Walter Grlitz, Diego Moya, Leoadec, Ron
Ritzman, Woohookitty, Mindmatrix, Ruud Koot, SCEhardt, Haunti, Palica, DaveTheRed, BD2412, Dpv, Sj, Gmelli, Krash, Docether,
FlaBot, Gurch, M7bot, Jared Preston, YurikBot, RobotE, Bhny, NightWolfe, Joel7687, Jpbowen, Bota47, Everyguy, Zzuuzz, Closed-
mouth, LeonardoRob0t, Benandorsqueaks, Elijahmeeks, Eptin, Bill, Friman~enwiki, Vanka5, SmackBot, Ohnoitsjamie, Lorian, Chris the
speller, Bluebot, Fplay, MalafayaBot, Deli nk, Jerome Charles Potts, CSWarren, Rybesh, DHN-bot~enwiki, Jahiegel, Wezzo, Cordless
Larry, Dreadstar, Phismith, Lester, NewTestLeper79, Onlim, IronGargoyle, Andr SC, 16@r, Xiaphias, MTSbot~enwiki, JYi, Drefty-
mac, Martin Kozk, Linkspamremover, Tawkerbot2, Wolfdog, WeggeBot, Iokseng, Gregbard, Gogo Dodo, JFreeman, Alaibot, Ebrahim,
Nol888, Z10x, Dgies, Piotr Mikoajski, Wahabijaz, BenB4, GurchBot, Kirrages, .anacondabot, Geniac, Magioladitis, VoABot II, Avjoska,
Carom, Oicumayberight, Chrisguidry, Roswell Crash Survivor, Iamthenewno2, R'n'B, Jahnavijagannath, Nono64, J.delanoy, Maurice
Carbonaro, Theo Mark, Jeepday, JClark2906, Dujohnson, Erik Swanson, MW3915, KylieTastic, Bonadea, VolkovBot, TXiKiBoT,
SueHay, Vanished user ikijeirw34iuaeolaseric, Dendodge, Jackfork, Madhero88, Samuelforsberg, AlleborgoBot, SieBot, Flyer22 Re-
born, Faradayplank, Paustin14580, BenoniBot~enwiki, StaticGull, VenkateshRao, ObfuscatePenguin, Fragnet, Tanvir Ahmmed, Clue-
Bot, Marcinjeske, Mild Bill Hiccup, TheOldJacobite, VandalCruncher, Jusdafax, TonyBallioni, BirgerH, Chininazu12, SchreiberBike,
Taranet, Versus22, WikHead, Galzigler, Marian Wilhide, Glane23, Tide rolls, Jarble, Irockursox11, Legobot, Luckas-bot, Bestiason-
ica, AnomieBOT, Dolly.Chitkara, SRU3-AZP8, JackieBot, Materialscientist, Hunnjazal, ArthurBot, Xqbot, Ratish.123, Ms Tristan,
GrouchoBot, Schlimmbesserung, Abuk SABUK, LucienBOT, Mark Renier, Sailorsun, Pinethicket, HRoestBot, Jandalhandler, Jauhienij,
YH1975, Jonkerz, DARTH SIDIOUS 2, TjBot, AndyHe829, Superk1a, EmausBot, Cxw888, Digitalpenfan, Wikipelli, SocialOntologist,
Nghawes, Granite333, Donner60, ChuispastonBot, EdoBot, ClueBot NG, MelbourneStar, This lousy T-shirt, Widr, MerlIwBot, Csean-
burns, Snaevar-bot, Mark Arsten, HMman, 21hattongardens, Bagoto, Pratyya Ghosh, Mullany14, ChrisGualtieri, Pavel679, Codename
Lisa, Mogism, Frosty, AmaryllisGardener, Tentinator, Documentbd, Quenhitran, Jianhui67, AddWittyNameHere, XboxGamer22408, A
Great Catholic Person, Bobmanwasadogcalledbob, Narky Blert, Gurjyottheman, Dragon7391, Zppix, KasparBot, Sro23, Qzd, Okejitu1
and Anonymous: 180

9.2 Images
File:1912_Birth_Certificate_Ken_Baker.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/1912_Birth_
Certificate_Ken_Baker.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Scan of original. Original artist: British Government.
File:Commons-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: PD Contributors: ? Origi-
nal artist: ?
File:Edit-clear.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Edit-clear.svg License: Public domain Contributors: The
Tango! Desktop Project. Original artist:
The people from the Tango! project. And according to the meta-data in the le, specically: Andreas Nilsson, and Jakub Steiner (although
minimally).
File:LL_Zamenhof_birth_certificate.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/LL_Zamenhof_birth_
certificate.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: The State Archive of Biaystok (www.bialystok.ap.gov.pl) Original artist:
undetermined govt dept
File:Restraining_Order.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Restraining_Order.jpg License: Public do-
main Contributors: http://talionsystems.com/SafetyProfile/BartsRestrainingOrder.jpg Original artist: The Justice Court of Las Vegas town-
ship
File:Wachovia_National_Bank_1906_statement.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Wachovia_
National_Bank_1906_statement.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

9.3 Content license

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