
"Document" is defined in library and information science and documentation science as a fundamental, abstract idea: the word denotes everything that may be represented or memorialized to serve as evidence. It has become physical evidence by those who study it. As an object of study, it has been made into a document. A conventional document, such as a mail message or a technical report, exists physically in digital technology as a string of bits, as does everything else in a digital environment. Levy's thoughtful analyses have shown that an emphasis on the technology of digital documents has impeded our understanding of digital documents as documents (e.g., Levy, 1994 ). The shift to digital technology would seem to make this distinction even more important. The concept of "document" has been defined by Suzanne Briet as "any concrete or symbolic indication, preserved or recorded, for reconstructing or for proving a phenomenon, whether physical or mental." Īn often-cited article concludes that "the evolving notion of document" among Jonathan Priest, Otlet, Briet, Schürmeyer, and the other documentalists increasingly emphasized whatever functioned as a document rather than traditional physical forms of documents. History, events, examples, opinions, etc. While documents can have large varieties of customization, all documents can be shared freely and have the right to do so, creativity can be represented by documents, also. Documents are also distinguished from " realia", which are three-dimensional objects that would otherwise satisfy the definition of "document" because they memorialize or represent thought documents are considered more as 2-dimensional representations. "Documentation" is distinct because it has more denotations than "document". Contemporarily, "document" is not defined by its transmission medium, e.g., paper, given the existence of electronic documents.

In the computer age, "document" usually denotes a primarily textual computer file, including its structure and format, e.g. In the past, the word was usually used to denote written proof useful as evidence of a truth or fact. The word originates from the Latin Documentum, which denotes a "teaching" or "lesson": the verb doceō denotes "to teach". A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content.
