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Publications → To publish is to make content available to the public. While specific use of the term may vary among countries, it is usually applied to text, images, or other audio-visual content on any medium, including paper (newspapers, magazines, catalogs, etc.) or electronic publishing forms such as websites, e-books, Compact Discs and MP3s. The word publication means the act of publishing, and also refers to any copies.

Documents → The term document has multiple meanings in ordinary language and in scholarship. WordNet 3.1. lists four meanings (October 2011):


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The term document has multiple meanings in ordinary language and in scholarship. WordNet 3.1. lists four meanings (October 2011):

  • document, written document, papers (writing that provides information (especially information of an official nature))
  • document (anything serving as a representation of a person's thinking by means of symbolic marks)
  • document (a written account of ownership or obligation)
  • text file, document ((computer science) a computer file that contains text (and possibly formatting instructions) using seven-bit ASCII characters).


In Library and information science and in documentation science is "document" considered a basic theoretical construct. It is everything which may be preserved or represented in order to serve as evidence for some purpose. The classical example provided by Suzanne Briet is an antelope: "An antelope running wild on the plains of Africa should not be considered a document, she rules. But if it were to be captured, taken to a zoo and made an object of study, it has been made into a document. It has become physical evidence being used by those who study it. Indeed, scholarly articles written about the antelope are secondary documents, since the antelope itself is the primary document." (Quoted from Buckland, 1998 ). (This view has been seen as an early expression of what now is known as actor–network theory).

That documents cannot be defined by their tra ... Read the rest of this article

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Document ... That documents cannot be defined by their transmission medium (such as paper) is evident because of the existence of electronic documents... A much cited article asked "what is a document" and concluded this way: “The evolving notion of ‘‘document’’ among Otlet, Briet, Schürmeyer, and the other documentalists increasingly emphasized whatever functioned as a document rather than traditional physical forms of documents... Levy’s thoughtful analyses have shown that an emphasis on the technology of digital documents has impeded our understanding of digital documents as documents (e.g., Levy, 1994)...


Featured Articles on Publications...

Publication ... In the United States, publication is defined as: the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display, constitutes publication...