The Antelope: What Is a Document?
Part 1 of 8 in The Text Document, a series on the history and philosophy of the textual document, from word processing to the cloud and machine authorship, and on the role open source and open standards have played in deciding who controls it. In 1934, a Belgian lawyer named Paul Otlet published Traité de documentation , titled "the book on the book," aiming to rationalize the entire universe of…
The definition of a document, first articulated by Belgian lawyer Paul Otlet in 1937, comprises three key properties. First, a document holds its form steady and can be cited, archived, and compared over time. A wild antelope, for instance, cannot fulfill this role as proof since it is ever-moving. Second, a document serves as evidence or testimony.
It attests to an author, decision, transaction, or observation—acting as organized physical evidence. Lastly, a document remains independent of the apparatus that created it. Once catalogued in a zoo, an antelope can reference any visiting naturalist without needing the original hunter present. This third property was taken for granted in physical documents, but digital formats have struggled to maintain it.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
