Books and bytes: Preserving documents for posterity

Information retrieval used to depend on the existence of “documents,” traditionally defined in library and information work as combinations of an information content and a supporting physical carrier. This article describes some of the problems in documentation work rising from the habit of detaching information from any physical support, as a prevailing notion in an electric environment. It points to the necessity of regarding information as something closely connected with preservation, and concludes by suggesting a clearer distinction in information science between “information” and “communication.”