Documentation science - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Introduction

Documentation science, documentation studies or just documentation is a field of study and a profession founded by Paul Otlet

Paul Otlet

Paul Marie Ghislain Otlet was an author, entrepreneur, visionary, lawyer and peace activist; he is one of several people who have been considered the father of information science, a field he called "documentation". Otlet created the Universal Decimal Classification, one of the most prominent...

(1868-1944) and Henri La Fontaine

Henri La Fontaine

Henri La Fontaine , was a Belgian international lawyer and president of the International Peace Bureau. He received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1913.-Biography:...

(1854-1943). Professionals educated in this field are termed documentalist
Documentalist
Documentalist is a kind of librarian, trained in documentation science and specializing in assisting researchers in their search for scientific and technical documentation...

s. This field generally changed its name to information science in 1968, but some uses of the term documentation still exists and there have been efforts to reintroduce the term documentation as a field of study.

“The term documentation is a neologism invented by [Paul] Otlet to designate what today we tend to call Information Storage and Retrieval. In fact it is not too much to claim the Traité [Traité de Documentation, 1934] as one of the first information science

Information science

-Introduction:Information science is an interdisciplinary science primarily concerned with the analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information...

textbooks" (Rayward, 1994, s. 238).

Berard (2003, p.148) writes that the concept ”documentation” is still much used in the French speaking areas and that it corresponds to information science in general. One explanation of why this concept is well established in French-speaking countries is that there is a clear division of labour between libraries and documentation centres in those countries. The personal employed at those different kinds of institutions has different educational backgrounds. The differences in roles between libraries and documentation centres have, however, become less clear during recent years.

Developments

1931: The International Institute for Documentation, (Institut International de Documentation, IID) was the new name for the International Institute of Bibliography (originally Institut International de Bibliographie, IIB) established on 12 September, 1895, in Brussels.

1937: American Documentation Institute was founded (1968 nameshift to American Society for Information Science).

1965-1990: Documentation departments were established in, for example, large research libraries with the appearance of commercial online computer retrieval systems. The persons doing the searches for clients were termed documentalist

Documentalist

Documentalist is a kind of librarian, trained in documentation science and specializing in assisting researchers in their search for scientific and technical documentation...

s. With the appearance of first CD-rom databases and later the Internet these intermediary searches have decreased and most of such departsments have be closed or merged with other departments. (This is perhaps an European terminology, in the USA the term Information Centers was often used).

1986: Information service and - management started under the name "Bibliotheek en Documentaire Informatieverzorging" as third level education in The Netherlands.

1996: “Dokvit”, Documentation Studies, was established in 1996 at the University of Tromsø in Norway (see Windfeld Lund, 2007).

2002: The Document Academy, an international network chaired and cosponsored by The Program of Documentation Studies, University of Tromsoe, Norway and The School of Information Management and Systems, UC Berkeley. http://thedocumentacademy.org/

2003: Document Research Conference (DOCAM) is a series of conferences made by the Document Academy. DOCAM '03 (2003) was The first conference in the series. It was held August 13-15, 2003 at The School of Information Management and Systems (SIMS) at the University of California, Berkeley.(See http://thedocumentacademy.org/?q=node/4 ).

2004: The term Library, information and documentation studies (LID) has been suggested as an alternative to Library and information science

Library and information science

Library and information science is a merging of the two fields library science and information science...

(LIS), (cf., Rayward et al., 2004)

Document versus information

In information science

Information science

and library and information science

Library and information science

Library and information science is a merging of the two fields library science and information science...

there has been a tendency to replace "document

Document

The term document has multiple meanings in ordinary language and in scholarship. WordNet 3.1. lists four meanings :* document, written document, papers...

" with "information

Information

Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...

" as the basic theoretical construct in the field. This tendency is evident, for example, by the nameshift of the American Documentation Institute

American Documentation Institute

The American Documentation Institute was founded by Watson Davis in 1935 as Documentation Institute which changed its name to the American Documentation Institute in 1937...

in 1968 to American Society for Information Science (in 2000 again nameshift to American Society for Information Science and Technology

American Society for Information Science and Technology

The American Society for Information Science and Technology, sometimes abbreviated ASIS&T or ASIST, is a non-profit membership organization for information professionals...

) and the associated shift from documentation science

Documentation science

-Introduction:Documentation science, documentation studies or just documentation is a field of study and a profession founded by Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine . Professionals educated in this field are termed documentalists...

to information science

Information science

.

Especially since the 1990s there has, however, been strong arguments put forward to revive the concept of document as the basic theoretical construct. Buckland (1991), Hjørland (2000) and others have for years been arguing that the concept of document is the most fruitful one to consider as the core concept in LIS. The concept of document is understood as “any concrete or symbolic indication, preserved or recorded, for reconstructing or for proving a phenomenon, whether physical or mental (Briet, 1951, 7; here quoted from Buckland, 1991). Recently additions to that view are Frohmann (2004), Furner (2004), Konrad (2007) and Ørom (2007). Frohmann (2004) discusses how the idea of information as the abstract object sought, processed, communicated and synthesized sets the stage for a paradox of the scientific literature by simultaneously supporting and undermining its significance for research front work. Furner (2004) argues that all the problems we need to consider in information studies can be dealt with without any need for a concept of information. All these authors assume that the concept of document is a more precise description of the objects that information science

Information science

is about.

Introduction

Developments

Document versus information

See also