Article,
What's in a Name? Contextualizing the Document Concept
Literary and Linguistic Computing, 20 (1): 61-69 (2005)
Abstract
The term document is used in various contexts, often referring to very different things. This article argues that we need to avoid a restrictive, essentialist definition of the concept and instead study the cognitive models that guide our way of viewing documents in different situations. Examples are drawn from the Library and Information field to show how the view of documents is influenced by different cognitive models and how more complex understandings may be described in terms of clusters of models. Such a set of tools for discussing the concept will be particularly useful as we are facing a whole range of new types of ‘documents’ made possible by digital media.
