{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,11,6]],"date-time":"2026-11-06T01:23:59Z","timestamp":1793928239891,"version":"4.8.0"},"reference-count":23,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2009,3,6]],"date-time":"2009-03-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1236297600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2009,3,6]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Purpose<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The purpose of this paper is to provide a reconsideration of Michael Buckland's important question, \u201cWhat is a document?\u201d, analysing the point and purpose of definitions of \u201cdocument\u201d and \u201cdocumentation\u201d.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Two philosophical notions of the point of definitions are contrasted: John Stuart Mill's concept of a \u201creal\u201d definition, purporting to specify the nature of the definiendum; and a concept of definition based upon a foundationalist philosophy of language. Both conceptions assume that a general, philosophical justification for using words as we do is always in order. This assumption is criticized by deploying Hilary Putnam's arguments against the orthodox Wittgensteinian interpretation of criteria governing the use of language. The example of the cabinets of curiosities of the sixteenth\u2010century English and European virtuosi is developed to show how one might productively think about what documents might be, but without a definition of a document.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Findings<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Other than for specific, instrumentalist purposes (often appropriate for specific case studies), there is no general philosophical reason for asking, what is a document? There are good reasons for pursuing studies of documentation without the impediments of definitions of \u201cdocument\u201d or \u201cdocumentation\u201d.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The paper makes an original contribution to the new interest in documentation studies by providing conceptual resources for multiplying, rather than restricting, the areas of application of the concepts of documents and documentation.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/00220410910937624","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2009,3,14]],"date-time":"2009-03-14T08:04:18Z","timestamp":1237017858000},"page":"291-303","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":49,"title":["Revisiting \u201cwhat is a document?\u201d"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"65","author":[{"given":"Bernd","family":"Frohmann","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2022030820343619900_b2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Buckland, M. (1991), \u201cInformation as thing\u201d, Journal of the American Society of Information Science, Vol. 42 No. 5, pp. 351\u201060.","DOI":"10.1002\/(SICI)1097-4571(199106)42:5<351::AID-ASI5>3.0.CO;2-3"},{"key":"key2022030820343619900_b1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Buckland, M.K. (1997), \u201cWhat is a \u201cdocument\u201d?\u201d, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Vol. 48 No. 9, pp. 804\u20109.","DOI":"10.1002\/(SICI)1097-4571(199709)48:9<804::AID-ASI5>3.0.CO;2-V"},{"key":"key2022030820343619900_b3","unstructured":"Daston, L. and Park, K. (1998), Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150\u20131750, Zone Books, New York, NY."},{"key":"key2022030820343619900_b4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Daston, L. (1988), \u201cThe factual sensibility\u201d, Isis, Vol. 79 No. 3, pp. 452\u201067.","DOI":"10.1086\/354776"},{"key":"key2022030820343619900_b5","unstructured":"Daston, L. (1998), \u201cThe language of strange facts in early modern science\u201d, in Lenoir, T. (Ed.), Inscribing Science: Scientific Texts and the Materiality of Communication, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, pp. 20\u201038."},{"key":"key2022030820343619900_b6","unstructured":"Day, R.E. (2001), The Modern Invention of Information: Discourse, History, and Power, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, IL."},{"key":"key2022030820343619900_b7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Frohmann, B. (2001), \u201cDiscourse and documentation: some implications for pedagogy and research\u201d, Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 13\u201026.","DOI":"10.2307\/40324034"},{"key":"key2022030820343619900_b8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Frohmann, B. 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