Page 9 - DLIS006_INFORMATION SOURCES AND SERVICES

Information Sources and Services
Notes
4 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY
There are accepted standards for specific applications in various fields, such as:
Academic: Thesis, paper, journal
Business and Accounting: Invoice, quote, RFP, Proposal, Contract, Packing slip, Manifest,
Report detailed & summary, Spread sheet, MSDS, Waybill, Bill of Lading (BOL), Financial
statement, Nondisclosure agreement (NDA) or sometimes referred to as; Mutual
nondisclosure agreement (MNDA)
Law and Politics: Summons, certificate, license, gazette
Government and Industry: White paper, application forms, user-guide
Media and Marketing: Brief, mock-up, script
Such standard documents can be created based on a template.
1.1.2 Documentation
Documentation science, documentation studies or just documentation is a field of study and a
profession founded by Paul Otlet (1868–1944) and Henri La Fontaine (1854–1943). Professionals
educated in this field are termed documentalists. 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 de
Documentation, 1934 as one of the first information science 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.
In the English-speaking world, the term “documentation” was gradually replaced by the term
“information science”. The most important expression of this change of terminology was in
1968 when the American Documentation Institute (founded 1937) changed its name to American
Society for Information Science (in 2000 name shift to American Society for Information Science
and Technology). This name shift is not, however, a completely neutral designation, but is to
some degrees associated with a corresponding shift of focus within the field from a primary
interest in the content and function of scientific documentation towards the application of
computers and information technology (IT).
Buckland (1991, pp. 46-48) has analysed some important aspects from the history of documentation.
During the early 1900s the documentalists felt a need for a general term, which could describe
the content of the documenting activity. The concept “document” has been used a designation
for informative physical objects including not only texts but also natural things, artefacts and
models which purpose have been to represent ideas and works of art. Buckland points out that
the word originally meant tool for teaching or information, whatever a lecture, an experience,
or a text was used. It is not until later in the history of the concept that it is narrowed to mean a
textual object. Suzanne Briet, a major figure in the history of documentation, used an antelope to
exemplify the meaning of the term. A wild specimen in Africa is not a document, but a specimen
that is captured and recorded in a Zoo is in her opinion a document (cf., Briet, 1951).