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Records, Archives, Memory Studies, May 2013 , Zadar.
Document Theory
A document-centered view of the universe
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Every society is an ‘information society’ because all
communities (human and animal) are formed by
communication, interaction and collaboration. All depend
on communication, on information.
There cannot be a ‘non-information society’.
Documents. Members of communities (humans and other
animals) communicate through gesture, language, and the
use material objects to signify something.
Social interactions and social control are increasingly
through documents. We depend more and more on
documents. So ‘document society’ is better.
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Terminology.
Document (verb) To make evident, to make an explanation.
Document (noun) Historically, something you learned from,
including lesson, lecture, or example. From 17th century,
primarily text, but retaining a sense of evidence.
In 20th century information used with many meanings:
- Information-as-knowledge: Knowledge imparted.
- Information-as-process: Becoming informed.
- Information-as-thing: Bits, bytes, books, etc.
Any thing perceived as signifying = “Document.”
And every document is authentic.
Important is what you believe about it and why.
Every record is a document. Is every document a record?
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A little history of documents
Prehistoric communication: Gestures, language, and objects.
Writing. Writing mediates speech, makes it permanent.
Effects: Continuity. Controls time. Control. Commerce.
Who can image life without writing?
Printing. Extreme multiplication of writing. More productive.
Consequences: Reformation; modern science; . . .
Telecommunications. Person on foot, horse, or ship.
Semaphore, telegraph, telephone, radio, fax, television.
Reduces distance and time. Coordination. Propaganda.
Copying. Photostat, microfilm, electrostatic (xerox).
Consequences: More writing. Image modification.
All definitions of document would include these four.
Social consequences. Standardization. Coordination.
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Document copying: 3 important technologies:
Photostat, microfilm, xerography.
Photostat camera: Negative
image on photographic paper.
45° mirror corrects left-right
reversal. Photostat of photostat
yields positive image. Designed by
René Graffin, editor of early Syriac
texts, Paris, 1900. Rapidly adopted
to replace copying by hand and by
typewriter. Dominant copying
technique 1910 to late 1930s.
Photostat as intermediate for microfilm, photolithography, etc.
Xerography designed to replace photostat.
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Microphotography
In 1839: Daguerrotypes; Fox Talbot
photos on paper; and J. B. Dancer
miniature texts.
Decisive application: Using 35 mm
movie film to copy bank checks to
reduce fraud, then newspapers.
Widely adopted in late 1930s with
safety film, better cameras,
continuous flow camera (Recordak).
Variants: Opaque microcard and
rectangles of film (“microfiche”).
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Document forensics: Benjamin
Franklin’s autobiography
blocked by ink spill.
Librarian used orange filter and image
enhancement, makes text legible.
Restoration of erasures, forgeries,
facsimiles, secret writing, altered
paintings, damaged records.
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Medieval vellum palimpsest.
Ultraviolet light to read erased
writing pioneered by G. Kögel,
P. R. Kögel & R. Kögel.
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Forged credit note.
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Ordinary Light
Infrared light
De Bry’s Collectiones expurgated by the Spanish Inquisition.
Infrared light penetrates censor’s ink, not the printer’s ink.
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Lodewyk Bendikson, 1875–1953. Popular Mechanics Magazine 1936
Photocopying led to image enhancement and forensic analysis.
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But . . .
Meaning is constructed by the viewer.
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Documents and Facts
Paul Otlet 1868-1944: Extract facts from texts.
Organize into hypertextual an encyclopedia
(“world brain”). Traité de documentation, 1934.
Ludwik Fleck 1896-1961: Genesis and
development of a scientific fact, 1935.
Facts as narrative simplification.
Triad: concept, individual, cultural
mindset / thinking style.
Paracelsus 1493-1541: Physician, botanist,
metallurgist in the transition from medieval
alchemy to modern science.
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Character
_Status_
Documents and technology
1. Phenomenological aspect: Documents are objects
perceived as signifying something. The status of being a
“document” is not inherent but attributed (given to) an
object. Meanings are always constructed by observers.
2. Cultural codes: All forms of expression depend on some
shared understandings, language in a broad sense.
3. Media Types: Different type of expression have evolved:
Texts, images, numbers, diagrams, art …
4. Physical Media: Paper; film; analog magnetic tape; bits;….
Any document has cultural (2), type (3), and physical (4)
aspects. Genres are culturally-situated combinations.
Being digital affects directly only aspect 3, but the
consequences are very extensive.
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The “Documentation Movement”
1895 Paul Otlet and Paul LaFontaine: “Flood” of documents!
Documentation = the management of documents.
What kinds of ‘document’? Globe, models, museum objects,
natural history specimens, . . . New forms of ‘book’.
W. Ostwald, H.G. Wells, Otlet: “World brain”: Encyclop. on cards.
Suzanne Briet. What is documentation? French 1951, English
2006. “A document is a proof in support of a fact.”
“Is a star a document? Is a pebble rolled by a torrent a
document? Is a living animal a document? No. But the
photographs and catalogues of stars, the stones, in a museum
of mineralogy, and the animals that are catalogued and shown
in a zoo, are documents.” e.g. Antelope of a new species
placed in a taxonomy and in a cage.
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After 1945 Documentation movement largely forgotten until
1990s. History and theory of documentation / information
science. University of Tromso. Document Academy (DOCAM).
Niels W. Lund’s ‘complementary’ theory: Documents have
three simultaneous, inseparable, complementary aspects:
1. Technical / technological aspects of documents;
2. Social role of documents; and
3. Intellectual / cognitive aspects of documents for individual.
Two literatures: Professional; and Social.
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Professional Theory of Documents: About Documents
Documentation as organization of knowledge objects. No basis for limiting
to texts on flat surfaces, extend to maps, plans, images, diagrams,
photographs, sculpture, educational toys, museum objects, archaeological
finds, &c. Overlaps with . . .
- Bibliography and bibliographical description: The making of lists. Patrick
Wilson’s Two kinds of power (1968): Power of description; and power to
find good documentary means for some purpose.
- Information Retrieval: Two simple operations: Modify; and sort.
Problematic assumptions: Sets of discrete documents. Relevance.
- Bibliometrics (Citation analysis, etc.): Like Information Retrieval,
Quantitative virtuosity based on weak assumptions.
- Paratext: Interpretative examination of textual relationships.
Bibliography is form of paratext; paratext is a extension of bibliography
(Roswitha Skare).
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Documentation of Documents
“a new cultural technique” and
“a necessity of our time.”
(Susan Briet, What is documentation?
1951. (English, 2006.)
Libraries, museums, archives, . . .
are engaged in cultural agendas
. . . through the suitable management
of documents.
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Social Theory of Documents
What do documents do? What is done with documents?
Governments to control us
Schools to direct what we learn
Religions to instill beliefs
Advertisers to make us buy
Politicians to induce consent
Entertainers to amuse us
Individuals to attract our attention
Libraries to . . . etc., etc.
Documents are everywhere in our lives and shape our society
and culture.
Use of documents not only fact-finding and problem solving.
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Literature on Social Theory of Documents
Largely outside of LIS.
“Histoire du livre.”
J. S. Brown & P. Duguid. Social life of documents.
Michel Foucault: Documents in construction of reality / control.
Karl Mannheim: Documentary meaning = unintended meaning.
JoAnn Yates. Control through communication. 1986.
D. McKenzie. Bibliography and the sociology of texts. 1986.
Bernd Frohmann, e.g. Deflating information. 2004.
Ron Day. The modern invention of information. 2001.
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Frontiers and agendas: Document
The definition of document is still not settled. Three views:
Conventional material view: Graphic records, usually text, made
on paper (or similar clay tablets, microfilm, and word-processer
files). Localized, transportable. Globes and sculpture? (Otlet).
Functional view: Almost anything can be made to serve as a
document, to signify something, to constitute evidence of
something. Models, educational toys, natural history collections,
archaeological traces, . . . Briet’s antelope. Bibliography (and
documentation) concerned with evidence not just records.
Semiotic view: Anything can be considered to be a document if is
regarded as evidence of something.
Progressively more inclusive.
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Frontiers and agendas: Bibliography
Bibliography as the documenting of documents (of any kind).
Requirements: Manuscripts, printed books, data sets, . . .
0. Created, exist.
1. Discovery: Does a suitable document or data set exist?
2. Location: Where is a copy?
3. Permission: May I use it? Legal constraints?
4. Too deteriorated and/or obsolete to use?
5. Interoperability: Standardized enough to be usable?
6. Description: It is clear enough what it represents?
7. Trust: Origin, lineage, version, and acceptable error rate?
These differ so require different sorts of remedy, some more
feasible and/or more affordable than others.
All need to be resolved for satisfactory document use.
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Frontiers and agendas: The Third Theory
Two document theory
literatures:
Three complementary
aspects of documents:
1. Professional document
theory (more or less
technical), and
1. Technical; technological.
2. Social document theory.
2. Social; and
There ought to a third!
Cognitive document theory.
What should that include?
What elements exist?
3. Cognitive/ intellectual.
3.
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Frontiers and agendas: Foundations
Documents substitute for a shared
work environment.
Documents as the work of others. cf
Marx on technology as past labor.
Documents as the means of
monitoring, influencing, and
negotiating relationships with
others.
Oral society.
Literate society (= Oral & literate)
Document society (= Oral, literate, and records we never see).
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A little future of documents . . .
FROM
TOWARDS
Writing, the recording of speech
Recording everything.
Printing, the multiplication of text
Representation of anything.
Telecommunications, doc. transport Simultaneous interaction.
Document copying
Analysis of resources.
The change in underlying technology enables new genres.
Also creates an environment in which different genres cans be
woven together – a new tapestry.
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Literature on document theory is very small compared with
communication and information but various related work
Good survey:
Niels W. Lund. Document theory. Annual Review of
Information Science and Technology 43 (2009): 399-432.
Roswitha Skare et al., eds. A document (re)turn. (Lang,
2007).
Links to several papers on document concepts, history:
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland
Assignment: Compose the third (Cognitive, intellectual)
theory of documentation!
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