Introduction to Documentation Studies

That I had the opportunity to review this book pleases me.Those familiar with my research might find it somewhat surprising that I have taken on this task.My research is primarily located in the field, which I choose to call information practices research, a subfield of library and information studies.Am I then the right person to comment on a book about documentation studies?Maybe, maybe not.My readers will be my judges.Over the past, roughly, 15 years, I have indeed been interested in the concept of the document, although not in a structured manner such that I have meticulously and systematically followed the literature in the field.It has more been a matter of encountering texts that sparked my interest, leading me to explore the document track mostly out of pleasure and curiosity.Memorable encounters along the way have included texts by Otlet and Briet (naturally), Brown and Duguid (1996), and of course Buckland (1997) andFrohmann (2004); plus many other pleasant acquaintances, particularly those where I have perceived that my usual path has intersected with the document path through questions focusing on the relationship between documents and people: what do people do with documents?And what do documents do to people?How do they play into sociomaterial practices?These are the kinds of questions that have thus far interested me the most, which also means that the concept that has been central for me is documentary practices (see, for example, Pilerot and Maurin Söderholm, 2019).But to be able to say something about such practices, one needs a reasonably well-thought-out understanding of how a document can be said to be constituted.It is on this matter that I have greatly benefited over the years from the works of Niels Windfeld Lund, not least his idea of documentation in a complementary perspective (2004).In short, this idea means that documents can simultaneously be seen as 100% material, since they necessarily have physical qualities as material objects, 100% social, as they contribute to linking and coordinating human