Books and bytes: Preserving documents for posterity

✍ Scribed by Larsen, Poul Steen

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 65 KB
• Volume: 50
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0002-8231
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4571(1999)50:11<1020::aid-asi7>3.0.co;2-r

✦ Synopsis

Information retrieval used to depend on the existence of "documents," traditionally defined in library and information work as combinations of an information content and a supporting physical carrier. This article describes some of the problems in documentation work rising from the habit of detaching information from any physical support, as a prevailing notion in an electric environment. It points to the necessity of regarding information as something closely connected with preservation, and concludes by suggesting a clearer distinction in information science between "information" and "communication."