Document typology
Each sphere in society has developed its own kinds of documents. Habermas (1962) provides a broad model of spheres of society and the development of their respective kinds of documents, which have been inspiring for, among other fields, research in mass communication.

 

More specific for Library and Information Science (LIS) is the UNISIST model, which originally proposed a typology of scientific and technological documents classified in primary, secondary and tertiary kinds of documents. This model has been expanded to include all kinds of scholarly documents by Fjordback Søndergaard; Andersen & Hjørland (2003), who provided the following typology of scientific and scholarly documents:

 

I.  Primary literature

(Primary literature is the researchers and knowledge producers primary medium for claiming original findings, theoretical analysis, empirical data etc.)

  Monographs 1 (as long as they communicate original findings)

  Journal articles and articles in edited books (as long as they communicate original findings)

  Critical-analyzing reviews

  Conference presentations

  "Grey literature, including: dissertations, treatises, master theses,

  Reports, kinds of official publications, kinds of governmental publications

  Patents

  Standards

 

Ia Source literature

Source literature is either literature produced in order to supply researchers with information (e.g. translation journals) or information produced to other purposes than research, but used as information by researchers (e.g. music and fiction).  Primary literature (and anything else) serves of course as information sources, why source literature is negatively defined as not being primary, secondary, tertiary, accidental or populating. literature)

  Facsimiles

  Transcriptions

  Source editions, scholarly editions, scientific editions, and standard editions. [Model: The works of Søren Kierkegaard ,,,].

  Laws, court findings

  Music

  Data archives

  Statistical documents, tabular documents (1) (reporting original data)

  Translations (only qua translations; the translated work is, for example, primary literature)

         Product information / "trade literature"

         (Not applicable: Sourcebooks)

 

II.  Secondary literature /bibliographical literature

(Literature that registers, describes and organizes as well the primary literature as the other categories (including the secondary literature itself. Secondary information systems are the core focus of the library, documentation, and information science profession. Bibliography is a discipline that studies this area).

  Subject bibliographies and bibliographical databases

  Abstract journals

  Indexes

  Citation Indexes

  Current Contents

  Bibliographic guides, metabibliographies

  Bio-bibliographies/author-encyclopedias (including auto-bibliographies on personal web-pages)

  Source inventories

        Catalogues, OPACs

 

IIa.   Dictionaries and thesauri

(Dictionaries are the focus of the linguistic subdisciplin lexicography. Thesauri are a kind of dictionaries that has mostly been studied and developed in relation to bibliographical databases)

          Historical/etymological dictionaries

          Translation dictionaries

          Conceptual dictionaries and thesauri

.

III.  Tertiary literature / Review literature /"outlines".

  (Literature summarizing and synthesizing knowledge in the primary literature)

  Handbooks

  (Textbooks)

  Monographs 2 (Synthesizing existing literature without providing new, independent knowledge)

  Review articles

  Scientific encyclopedias (General encyclopedias should be regarded as popularizations)

  Short, indicative reviews

  Chronological surveys

  Data handbooks, tabular documents 2 (synthesizing original statistical sources)

 

IV. "Incidental Information"

(Information about tools (including computers and software), about developments in the job market, in the discipline/domain, etc. as long as such information cannot bee seen as part of the domains regular knowledge production.)

 

  Biographical documents

  Directories

  Conference calendars

  Lists of archives

  Directory to grants, scholarships etc. 

  Yearbooks (annual reports)

        Newsletters

        Personal homepages

 

V. Popularizations

(Export of knowledge produced in a domain to the general public, to other domains or to students).

Textbooks

Magazines,

Newspapers (e.g. science journalism)

Popular books (including general encyclopedias)

Faction, science fiction

        Mass media, multimedia presentations etc.

 

 

 

 

to be edited:

Dokumenter kan analyseres ud fra en række forskellige dimensioner, f.eks.:

- faglige/indholdsmæssige kriterier (f.eks. juridiske, historiske og kemiske dokumenter),­

-­ *medie-egenskaber (f.eks. trykte medier versus mikroformer og elektroniske medier),

- *publikationsformer (såsom monografier versus tidsskrifter),

- *funktions­kategorier (såsom af­handlingslitteratur (nogle gange kaldet "primærlitteratur") versus biblio­grafisk litteratur (nogle gange kaldet "sekundær litteratur") og oversigt­slitteratur (nogle gange kaldet "tertiær litteratur"),

- *formidlingsniveauer (f.eks. populærlitteratur versus professionel litteratur) m.v.

Dokumenttypologien udgør eet element i en informations­videnskabelig teori. Dokumen­terne repræsenterer værktøjer for adekvate handlinger indenfor infor­mationssøgning og har derfor en plads i en almen teori om informationssøgning.

Som så mange andre områder af informationsvidenskaben er dokumenttypo­logien mangelfuldt teoretisk udviklet. Mange begreber vedr. dokument­typer har en "ad hoc" -karakter, der f.eks. bevirker, at den elektroni­ske udvikling vil overfløddiggøre dem. De fleste ansatser til en teori om dokumenttyper har desuden en stærkt formalistisk tendens: dokument­typerne defineres ikke funktionalistisk, og dokument­typologien har derfor været svær at forene med forskning og studier i faglige kommunika­tionssystemer. Disse forhold har bevirket, at de fleste har mistet tilliden til dokumenttypologien og vendt den ryggen: fordi den ikke er adekvat bestemt, anses den ofte for uvæsentlig.

Et forslag til en dokumenttypologi belyst udfra kommunikation­steoreti­ske og informationsviden­skabelige principper er Hjørland (1991).

 

 Documents classified by types

 by Social Sciesearch (18may94)

220

 DT=ABSTRACT

1

 DT=ART EXHIBIT REVIEW

1285744 

DT=ARTICLE

490

DT=BIBLIOGRAPHY

786872

DT=BOOK REVIEW

280

DT=CHRONOLOGY

9774

DT=CORRECTION, ADDITION

230

DT=DATABASE REVIEW

8999  

DT=DISCUSSION

132257

DT=EDITORIAL

6

 DT=FICTION, CREATIVE PROSE

  5

DT=FILM REVIEW

65

DT=HARDWARE REVIEW

6830

DT=ITEM ABOUT AN INDIVIDUAL

125001

DT=LETTER

105121

DT=MEETING ABSTRACT

92989

DT=NOTE

 21

DT=POETRY

383

DT=REPRINT

 8720

DT=REVIEW

21724

DT=REVIEW, BIBLIOGRAPHY

1682

DT=SOFTWARE REVIEW

 2

DT=TV REVIEW, RADIO REVIEW, VIDEO

     

          

 

 


Literature:

 

Alstrup, E. (1988). Faglitteraturens typologi. Definitioner og eksempler. København: Danmarks Biblioteksskole.
 

Andersen, A. (1990). Veje til viden. Håndbøger og andre informationskilder. København: Danmarks Biblioteksskole. (Danmarks Biblioteksskoles Skrifter 17).
 

Danske Katalogregeludvalg, Det: Katalogiserings­regler og bibliogra­fisk standard for danske biblioteker. Bilag. Baseret på Anglo-American cataloging rules 2.ed. (AACR2). Ballerup: Bibl­iotekscentralen, 1987. (Heri: Bilag D: ordliste med definitioner,side 27-40).
 

De Beaugrande, R. (1980). Text, discourse and process: toward a multi-disciplinary science of texts. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.
 

Fjordback Søndergaard, T.; Andersen, J. & Hjørland, B. (2003). Documents and the communication of scientific and scholarly information. Revising and updating the UNISIST model. Journal of Documentation, 59(3), 278-320. http://www.db.dk/bh/UNISIST.pdf

Grogan, D. (1973). Science and technology. An introduction to the literature. 2. ed. London.
 

Habermas, J. (1962). The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989. (Translated from: Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit, 1962)
 

Hjortgaard et al. (1985). Referencematerialer indenfor naturvidenskab og medicin. 2. udg. Kbh.: Danmarks Biblioteksskole.
 

Hjørland, B. (1990). Indledende overvejelser over faglitteraturens typologi og udtryksformer. Biblioteksarbejde, nr. 29, 11. årg., 35-50.
 

Hjørland, B. (Ed.). (1997). Faglitteraturens dokumenttyper i kommunikations- og viden­skabsteoretisk belysning. Kategorier, medier, former, genrer, niveauer & kvaliteter. Bind 1-2. Copenhagen: The Royal School of Library and Information Science. 6. foreløbige udgave. Click for fulltext.
 

Houser, L. (1986). Documents: The Domain of Library and Information Science. Library and Information Science Research, 8, 163-188.
 

Informationsordbogen. Ordbog for informationshåndtering, bog og bibliotek. Udarbejdet af Jens B. Friis-Hansen, Torben Høst, Poul Steen Larsen & Henning Spang-Hanssen. København: Dansk Standardiseringsråd, 1991 (DS/Inf 27).
 

Kolding Nielsen, E. (1978). Samtidshistorie og biblioteksvidenskab. Om informationsstrukturen i samtidshistorie og dens biblioteksmæssige konsekvenser. IN: Bag ved bøgernes bjerg. Festskrift til Mogens Iversen, 250-265.
 

Kolding Nielsen, E. (1983). Det rette værk til den rette låner. Formidling af faglitteratur. (IN: Biblioteket. Festskrift til Preben Kirkegaard. København: Danmarks Biblioteksskole), pp. 104-123.
 

Kolding Nielsen, E. (1985). Informations- og litteratursøgning i Humaniora og Samfundsfag. Diagrammer, oversigter og begrebsleksikon til metode, systematik og terminologi. København: Danmarks Biblioteksskole (mimeo.). (Humaniora og Samfundsvidenskab, 19).
 

Kaae, S. (1990). Verbal emneindeksering i BASIS. En håndbog. Ballerup: Biblioteks­centralens forlag.
 

Munch-Petersen, E. (1980). Bibliografiens teori: en introduktion. København: Danmarks Biblioteksskole.  (Danmarks Biblioteksskoles skrifter, 14).
 

Munch-Petersen, E. (1983). Ordforklaringer. (IN: Biblioteket som informationscentral. Ed. by Axel Andersen. 4. udg. København: Gad. (Pp. 155-182).
 

Scientific and Technical Communication. A Pressing National Problem and Recommen­dations for Its Solution. A Report by the Committee on Scientific and Technical Communi­cation of the National Academy of Sciences -National Academy of Engineering. Washington, D.C., 1969.


Tijssen, R. J. W. et al. (1990). Integrating multiple sources of information in literature-based maps of science. Journal of Information Science, 16, 217-227.
 

UNISIST (1971). Study Report on the feasibility of a World Science Information System. By the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the International Council of Scientific Unions. Paris, Unesco. 
 

Varet, G. & Varet, M.-M. (1995). Maitriser l'information a travers sa terminologie. Paris: Diffusion Les Belles Lettres. 

 

Walker, R. W. & Hurt, C. D. (1990). Scientific and Technical Literature: An Introduction to Communication Forms. Chicago: American Library Association.
 

Webb, W. H. (1985). Sources of Information in the Social Sciences. A Guide to the Literaure. 3. ed. Chicago: American Library Association.
 

Werlich, E. (1975). Typologie der Texte. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer.

 

Categories of Documents http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/word/categories2.htm
 

 

 

 

Birger Hjørland

Last edited: 26-09-2006

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