UC Berkeley

The question “What is a digital document?” is seen as a special case of the question “What is a document?” Ordinarily the word “document” denotes a textual record. Early this century, attempts to provide access to the rapidly growing quantity of available documents raised questions about which should be considered a “document”. Paul Otlet and others developed a functional view of “document” and discussed whether, for example, sculpture, museum objects, and live animals, could be considered to be “documents”. Suzanne Briet equated “document” with organized physical evidence. These ideas 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. Old confusions between medium, message, and meaning are renewed with digital technology because technological definitions of “document” become even less realistic when everything is in bits.