Document,documentation, and the Document Academy: introduction

A series of efforts starting in the late nineteenth century to manage the increase in documents came to be knows as “documentation.” Leaders included Paul Otlet and Suzanne Briet. The concern was with access to evidence and the meaning of “document” was broadened to include any sign preserved to represent phenomena. Legal deposit, when extended to new modern media, required new techniques and led to a new program in documentation at the University of Tromsø, Norway, in 1996. Niels Lund, Michael Buckland, and others collaborated in forming the Document Academy and organized a series of conferences.