With the development of society, the concept of literature has changed a lot. In addition to ancient books, people also refer to historical sites, antiquities, models, inscriptions, paintings and so on. As a historical document, it has historical value. 1984 People's Republic of China (PRC)'s national standard "General Rules for Document Description" defines document as: document: recording all carriers with knowledge. In this definition, there are two key words: knowledge is the core content of literature, and the carrier is the material shell on which knowledge exists, that is, some artificial solid attachments to record knowledge. That is to say, except books, periodicals and other publications, all Oracle Bone Inscriptions, epigraphy, bamboo slips, rubbings, maps, microfilms, videos, audio-visual materials, etc. Words containing words belong to the category of literature.
For thousands of years, our ancestors have created rich and splendid cultural achievements, which are mainly recorded in the voluminous ancient books and classics. These are classical documents. Among them, the books and materials directly related to a certain subject are the literature of that subject. The basic task of classical philology is to inherit the methods, experiences and achievements of ancient collators, use the viewpoints and methods of historical materialism and dialectical materialism to explore, collect, sort out and study these documents, discard the false and retain the true, research the origin of mirrors, make them known, mastered and utilized by professional workers at all levels in various disciplines, and create new scientific culture on this basis, thus making contributions to all mankind. The role of literature in the development of science and society is as follows: (1) is the final expression of scientific research and technological research achievements; (2) It is the best means to spread information in space and time; (3) It is the basic means to confirm the priority of researchers to a discovery or invention; (4) It is an important index to measure the creative labor efficiency of researchers; (5) It is a means for researchers to express themselves and confirm their position in science, so it is an important incentive for researchers to carry out research activities; (6) It is an integral part of the treasure house of human knowledge and the * * * wealth of human beings.
First of all, literature is an important medium for people to acquire knowledge. Literature is the product of the development of human culture to a certain stage (when it has recordable content and recording tools and means), and it continues to develop with the progress of human civilization. The accumulation, summary, storage and improvement of society and knowledge of nature by human beings are mainly realized through the recording, sorting, dissemination and research of documents. Literature can make human knowledge break through the limitation of time and space and spread for a long time.
Second, the content of the literature reflects the knowledge level of people in a certain social and historical stage; The existing forms of documents (such as recording means, writing materials, composition and communication methods, etc.). ) were influenced and restricted by the development level of social science, technology and culture at that time. For example, before the invention of paper, the ancients in China could only make records on Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bamboo slips and silk books; Before the invention of block printing, the ancients could only record documents by hand. However, it was on the basis of the accumulation of experience in the primary and primitive stage of literature that paper and block printing were invented, which made the recording method of literature more convenient, more widely spread and faster. People also learn from literature and contribute to society with knowledge, thus greatly promoting the development of social civilization. It can be seen that the level of social development determines the content and form of literature, and the inheritance, dissemination and creative application of literature react on society and become a powerful factor in social development. Gorky, a famous writer in the former Soviet Union, famously said that books are the ladder of human progress.
Third, literature is the basis of scientific research. Any scientific research must extensively collect documents and materials, analyze various forms of materials on the basis of full possession of materials, explore their internal relations, and then conduct further research. For example, Professor Needham of Britain spent decades writing a world-famous masterpiece, History of Science and Technology in China, which was written on the basis of a large number of ancient scientific and technological documents in China. Throughout the history of traditional Chinese medicine, all physicians who have made great academic achievements attach great importance to the study of literature. Zhang Zhongjing, a medical sage, diligently sought the ancient method and learned from many schools, and compiled Suwen, Jiujuan, Eighty-one Difficult, Great Theory of Yin and Yang, Pregnancy Record and Pingmai Syndrome Differentiation, which is the sixteenth edition of Treatise on Febrile Diseases. Sun Simiao, the most famous physician in the Tang Dynasty, has accumulated the achievements of medical literature before the Tang Dynasty for decades, and has successively written "A Prescription for Emergency" and "A Prescription for a Thousand Daughters". Li Shizhen, a great scientist in Ming Dynasty, collected hundreds of books on fishing and hunting, including stories, history, classics, biographies, phonology, agricultural gardens, medical astrology and Yuefu scholars, and wrote a few words. With a history of 30 years and 800 books, he compiled the immortal masterpiece Compendium of Materia Medica, which is known as the encyclopedia of natural history. According to statistics, he cited more than 900 kinds of documents directly and indirectly. They are all examples of studying and utilizing ancient documents. For example, the modern research on the basic theory of traditional Chinese medicine and the modern research on ancient diseases, syndromes, treatments and prescriptions are all based on the collection, collation, analysis and study of classical medical literature.
To sum up, literature is very important for the progress of human civilization and society. Regardless of ancient and modern times, anyone engaged in scientific research needs to rely on relevant literature. Classical literature plays an increasingly important role in the modern research of many disciplines, and people pay more and more attention to it. I believe that in the modern information society, classical literature will play a greater role by making full use of modern scientific and technological means. Depends on the operator
The most important thing is that it is divided into printing type, miniature type, machine-readable type and audio-visual type according to the carrier.
(1) printing type: it is the most basic way of literature, including lead printing, mimeograph, offset printing, lithograph and other materials. Advantages: you can read directly, which is convenient and fast.
(2) Miniaturization: documents based on photosensitive materials can be divided into microfilm and microfilm. Its advantages are small size and convenient storage, transfer and transportation. But you must use a reader when reading.
(3) Computer readable: It is the latest form of carrier. Mainly through coding and programming, files are converted into symbols and machine language, input into computers, stored on magnetic tapes or disks, and then output by computers when reading. It can store a large amount of information, organize it in any form, and extract the required information from it at a very fast speed. The emergence of e-books belongs to this type.
(4) Audio-visual type: also known as direct sense type or audio-visual type, it is a file recorded on the carrier in the form of sound and image, such as records, audio tapes, video tapes, science and technology movies, slides, etc.
According to different publishing forms and contents
According to the different publishing forms and contents, it can be divided into books, serial publications and special literature.
(1) Books: Any document that is longer than 48 pages and constitutes a bibliographic unit is called a book.
(2) Continuous publications: including periodicals (including core periodicals), newspapers and annual publications.
(3) Special documents: patent documents, standard documents, dissertations, scientific reports, conference documents, government publications, archives and product materials.
According to the content, nature and processing of the literature
According to the content, nature and processing of documents, documents can be divided into zero-level documents, first-level documents, second-level documents and third-level documents.
(1) Zero-order documents refer to unprocessed and published manuscripts, original data records and other documents.
(2) Primary literature refers to the literature created on the basis of the author's own research results, such as journal papers, research reports, patent specifications, conference papers, etc.
Original documents include books, newspaper clippings, conference documents, dissertations, patent documents, government publications, product samples, scientific and technological reports, standard documents and archives.
Books cover a wide range, including masterpieces, general monographs, textbooks, popular science books, information reference books and so on.
Famous works refer to the most influential authoritative works of an era, a discipline and a school. Such as Danner's philosophy of art in France and Darwin's origin of species.
A monograph is a systematic, comprehensive and in-depth exposition of a certain subject and a special problem, with profound content, mostly the crystallization of the author's research results for many years. For example, Darwin's On the Origin of Species.
Textbooks are professional books, which are strictly scientific, systematic and logical. Popular science books are popular books aimed at popularizing scientific knowledge to the broad masses. Divided into primary, intermediate and advanced books, the text is simple, but the latest information content is low.
Newspapers are serial publications, which mainly publish news and comments. Such as Wen Wei Po and China Education News.
Periodicals are regular or irregular publications, including weekly, monthly, bimonthly and quarterly. It can be divided into academic journals, information journals, technical journals, professional journals and mass journals. There are three kinds of common periodicals. One kind is magazines. One is reports, periodicals, series, periodicals and university journals. There is also a kind of abstract and copy. Information reference books include manuals, dictionaries, encyclopedias, yearbooks, etc. Manuals often collect the most commonly used literature materials of a certain profession or a certain aspect that are often consulted. For example, the Handbook of Medicine and the Handbook of Photography. A dictionary is a reference book that collects words, arranges them in a certain way and explains them one by one. Such as Cihai, Dictionary of Philosophy, Dictionary of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Dictionary of China Fine Arts, Dictionary of China Names, Dictionary of China Artists, etc.
An encyclopedia is a complete reference book that discusses all categories of human beings or just one category. It can be divided into two categories: one is comprehensive encyclopedia, such as Encyclopedia of China and Encyclopedia of Britain. The other is professional encyclopedias, such as world art encyclopedias and education encyclopedias. Yearbook is edited and published year by year, and it is a reference book to summarize the important events, discipline progress and various statistical data that occurred in a year. There are many kinds of yearbooks, including comprehensive yearbooks and professional yearbooks. For example, China Encyclopedia Yearbook belongs to comprehensive yearbooks, while Education Yearbook and Philosophy Yearbook belong to professional yearbooks.
(3) Secondary literature is one of the retrieval tools such as bibliography, bibliography, introduction and abstract.
Bibliography is a catalogue that counts and reflects books, periodicals and other documents published nationwide in a certain period. Such as national general bibliography, national new bibliography, China publication yearbook, etc.
Indexing is to write down the contents or items in a book or newspaper, compile a concise bibliography, arrange it in a certain order, and indicate the source. National Newspaper Index (Monthly) is a magazine that counts and reflects newspapers and periodicals published nationwide in a certain period. The index can be divided into natural science and technology edition (science and technology edition) and philosophy and social science edition (philosophy and social science edition).
The retrieval abstract is a retrieval tool that collects the documents in a certain range, summarizes their main contents concisely, records the titles, authors and sources of the documents, and arranges them in a certain direction. Such as chemical abstracts, academic papers on social sciences in China, abstracts of dissertations and leaflets, etc. The three documents are based on the first-level documents and the second-level documents. People usually refer to these documents as the results of "information research", such as reviews, thematic reviews, annual summaries of disciplines, progress reports, data manuals and so on. Similarly, some people divide intelligence into primary intelligence, secondary intelligence and tertiary intelligence.
Literature can also exist as a name. With the development of human culture, education and science and technology, the number of documents recording its contents is increasing. It is generally believed that non-scientific literature will increase by 1 times every 30 to 50 years, and scientific literature will increase by 1 times every 10 years or so. For example, from 1960 to 1970, the literature in the fields of mathematics, physics, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, biology and physiology increased by 1 times. Documentalists F.J. Cole and N.B. eells (19 17), American-Israeli-American university librarian F. Ryder (1944), and scientist Price (196 1). I have studied this and Price has explored it. Its mathematical expression is: (formula 1) where F(t) represents the document quantity at time t; T is the time (in years); α is a conditional constant, that is, the amount of documents at the initial moment of statistics; B is a time constant; E is the base of natural logarithm, which is equal to 2.7 18.
Although this law can correctly reflect the literature growth in the past historical years, it has its limitations, that is, it cannot predict the future growth trend of scientific literature.
Soviet scientist B. Narimov and others put forward the theory that scientific literature grows according to logical curve. Its mathematical expression is: (Formula 2) where k is the maximum value of literature growth at a certain moment. That is to say, the growth of literature has an insurmountable limit, which is obviously unrealistic. Although logical curve has achieved some success in the statistical study of scientific literature growth, it still has the above limitations.
α ииии Mikhailov and others found a linear growth model in a large number of statistical studies:
Where F(t) represents the cumulative number of documents in t years; B is the literature growth rate; α is the literature accumulation (theoretical value) when t=0. This law is suitable for the growth characteristics of scientific and technological documents in a certain period in the future.
In short, literature growth can be roughly described as four stages, namely, the initial stage of slow growth, the exponential growth stage, the linear growth stage and the slow growth stage. However, the literary growth of different disciplines, different branches of the same discipline or different disciplines in different periods does not all conform to the same model. Through the study of literature growth, we can reveal the dynamic law of literature system and provide quantitative basis for management decisions such as collection construction and information service. It can also determine the quantitative relationship between the number of documents and scientific growth indicators, judge and predict the growth of scientific knowledge, and then explore the development law of the whole science. Whether it can be used for prediction needs further study, especially the rigor of statistical work and the accuracy of description.