Re: [Glossary] Definition of a portable document (and other things...)

I think the missing word here is some form of "curation." Humans curate.
Machines do not curate without human instruction (or markup determined by a
human).

Other than this one exception, +1 to Deborah's comments. They're spot on.

-Jean (Ivan!!! Please post for me? Thanks!)

Jean Kaplansky
Content Manager
Safari

email: jkaplansky@safaribooksonline.com
twitter: @jeankaplansky

On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 1:28 PM, Deborah Kaplan <
dkaplan@safaribooksonline.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 11:25 AM, Leonard Rosenthol <lrosenth@adobe.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Your personal website COULD be a document and in fact you might want to
>> “package it up” and archive it away as such.
>>
>
> Sure, it could be. But it isn't. The definition of a portable document
> must not to be so general that  it includes every collection of resources
> that could theoretically exist in the format we define as "portable."
>
> That's why I used the term "editorial constructed." Ivan took exception to
> the word "editor," although in this case I am distinguishing between the
> concept of "editor" and the concept of "editorial." In fact, you make the
> distinction for me yourself, right here, Leonard:
>
> “unrelated” is only a current state in the mind of a single person.  The
>> simple act of making a collection of them has now made them related.  And
>> that act of collecting them together (by human or machine) is the
>> “editorial construct”.
>>
>
> The simple act of making a collection of them has made them " editorially
> constructed." However, when you say that active collecting them together --
> by human or machine -- is the editorial construct. I would argue that
> something does not become a portable document because a spider crawled the
> site and generated a sitemap file. That can be *one* method by which
> portable documents are created (e.g., I can make the decision that I would
> like to create a document which is my entire site, so I build a spider to
> generate a collection). However, the mere act of having a machine generated
> collection doesn't make something a document.
>
> For what it's worth, I think this is an inherent danger in creating
> explicit definitions, although of course I see the value in doing so as
> well.
>
> The others here who have a library, archives, or information science
> background might recognize what I'm saying here, but I assert that to make
> something a document, a human choice needs to have been made to create it
> (even if the human choice was "I am going to run a web crawler and
> everything that it grabs will be a document"). Refencing Briet and those
> who followed: "There is intentionality: It is intended that the object be
> treated as evidence" and "the quality of having been placed in an
> organized, meaningful relationship with other evidence--that gives an
> object its documentary status." cf
> http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/digdoc.html
>
> To quote Buckland's conclusion in the link above: "Attempts to define
> digital documents are likely to remain elusive, if more than an ad hoc,
> pragmatic definition is wanted.."
>
> I know we are not going to pin down something which has eluded entire
> fields of information science. However, if we must define "document", it's
> vital to make it clear that a document is not a random collection of
> electronic files that happen to be something accessed together. They are
> constructed with intention, or compiled with intention.
>
> For what it's worth, compiled with intention can be a readerly choice, as
> well. Think about Pintrest as a (not at all portable) example. A collection
> of images of sofa cushions, curtains, and paint swatches from a variety of
> different company's websites and personal blogs does not itself construe a
> document. However, if a Pintrest user then puts together a board compiling
> all of those images, that  is a constructed document. The only implied
> consumer of that document might also be the compiler of it, but that
> doesn't make it any less a document. Nonetheless,  intellectual choices
> were a necessary part of that compilation.
>
> Deborah
>