By Steve Gilheany [4]
Introduction
This article is about document management. The perspective of the article is the transition of document managers from managing paper documents to managing paper and digital documents. This article assumes some understanding of the management of paper documents and does not assume any background in the technology of digital document management.
One System for Paper and Digital Records
All of the problems of managing paper documents are found in managing digital documents. There are relatively few new problems unique to digital documents. Often people are introduced to document management because they have experience in digital systems and a digital document management system is being implemented. People learning document management in a digital environment frequently assume that the problems of cataloging and indexing are unique to the digital environment, when in fact, the problems (and solutions) have existed for many years in paper document management. While the number of problems introduced by digital documents are relatively limited, it is not wise to mix problems that are unique to the management of digital documents with the problems of poorly managed paper documents. For this reason, reviewing and cleaning up the management of paper documents is important to the success of any digital document management system intended to include the contents of the paper documents.
In another close parallel, setting up the organization of a digital document management system is very similar to organizing paper documents, and good intellectual control of the digital document organization is essential to the success of a management system for digital documents.
Having two parallel systems, one to manage paper documents, and a second to manage digital documents, is very expensive. Eventually (and often very quickly), the need to cut expenses eliminates one of the two systems. This either causes the loss of the investment in the digital system or causes the loss of all of the documents that are only accessible via the paper based system. Because the management of paper and digital systems are very similar, it is relatively easy to have one system manage both paper and digital documents. This ensures that it is not necessary to recreate the paper based cataloging and indexing systems, usually saving a considerable expense. The old paper based system can be cleaned up using a small part of the digital system funding (paper systems operate on a small fraction of the budget of digital systems). Both the paper and digital systems benefit from the thorough review and cleanup. It is easy to tie the digital version of a document to its paper version, so tracing a history and uncovering conversion problems is greatly simplified. Finally, because there is only one system, it cannot be eliminated in the hopes of getting by on an unreviewed and often incomplete other system.
The Word Document
The word document comes from the Late Latin (3rd to 6th century) documentum meaning official paper and from the Latin lesson or proof. Today there are many definitions of document. Certainly, each person should have their own definition. A document is an identifiable recording of information. Any recording medium can be used, as long as it persists over time. Information is more than data, so a document includes some elements of contextualization, organization, and analysis.
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Documents may also be iconic or evidential in nature. This is particularly true for old documents being archived. In this case, the rarity (small number) of old documents often dictates that they be saved, even when other aspects of the documents might indicate that they be discarded, or even argue that they are not documents. Recordings of data are not documents, unless the recordings include contextualization, organization, and analysis. Examples of data is the error map of a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), the speed of each car passing a given point on a road, or the exact weight of each can of soft drink produced in a factory.
Libraries and Books
Data needs contextualization, organization, and analysis to become a document. With sufficient contextualization, organization, and analysis, a document becomes a book.
Archives and History
Archives store the records of a society. A history of a society is created by an analysis of the records of a society in the light of the context of the society in the global history, as the global history is known at the time of the writing of the history. A history is local to the time that the history is written. Contrary to popular belief, there is no single, accurate history. History is a reflection of the present in the past. History is created in the moment, and become inaccurate in the next moment.
