The concept of document in the bibliographic approach according to the constituent disciplines of the field

Abstract

Bibliography, Library Science, Documentation and Information Science present, each in their own way and influencing one another, the field that is engaged in documentary mediation in the bibliographic approach. In view of the constituent parts of the field, these disciplines enable a concept of document in the sense of empirical object on which falls the procedures. The objective is to treat the construction of the concept of document by means of the disciplines whose contributions converge in the field of documentary mediation actions in the bibliographic approach. The methodology employed was a search of the literature that discusses the document in the aforementioned disciplines to seek to establish equivalences and perform counterpoints. The first part provides a historical construction of the concept of document during the twentieth century, in particular on French soil, from its conception by Paul Otlet, then by Suzanne Briet, and then by Jean Meyriat; the second part intersects the disciplines of Bibliography, Library Science and Documentation around the concept of document from an empirical or scientific perspective, and the aspects that Information Science inherited from the disciplines that preceded it; and the third part, which seeks to deepen the concept of document in the bibliographic approach by establishing some relationships with ideas proposed for this concept by archival and museological approaches. It is concluded that the predominant bibliographic approach to the document emphasizes the typological instance of the object and the normalizing of its description, unless that is based on the symbolic character of procedures and of the final product.