documentation
(ˌdɒkjʊmɛnˈteɪʃən)
[ad. med.L. documentātiōn-em admonition, n. of action f. *documentāre to document.]
The action of documenting or fact of being documented.
† 1. Instruction, admonition, ‘lecturing’. Obs.
| 1754 Richardson Grandison VI. xxv. 143 Not another word of your documentations, dame Selby, I am not in a humour to bear them. 1844 Blackw. Mag. LV. 199 No end to these chartered documentations of the sex! |
2. The furnishing of a ship with the requisite ‘papers’.
| 1884 Harper's Mag. June 60/2 In the registration of a new vessel, the production..of the certificate of measurement..is required in order to documentation. |
3. a. Preparation or use of documentary evidence and authorities.
In reference to realistic fiction, applied to the faithful reproduction of historical or objective facts.
| 1888 Athenæum 17 Mar. 342 Is art simply an affair of documentation, as the phrase of the day goes? 1893 Spectator 23 Dec. 919/1 M. Zola..has great industry and is very painstaking in ‘documentation’. 1895 Westm. Gaz. 4 July 2/1 There is so much to read up, such documentation to be exercised. |
b. The accumulation, classification, and dissemination of information (see quot. 1948); the material so collected.
| [1905 Publ. Office Internat. de Bibliographie lxix (title) L'Organisation rationnelle de l'information et de documentation en matière économique. Rapport présenté..par P. Otlet.] 1927 D. P. Myers in Libraries XXXII. 107 (title) International documentation, its classification and purpose. 1938 Rep. World Congr. Universal Documentation, 1937 32 The documentation centre at the Science Library. 1940 Proc. Brit. Soc. Internat. Bibliogr. I. ii. 11 The co-ordination of documentation. 1948 S. C. Bradford Documentation 9 Documentation is the process of collecting and subject classifying all the records of new observations and making them available, at need, to the discoverer or the inventor. 1967 FID News Bull. XVII. 70/1 The advent of a new discipline of science called documentation,..scientific information, information science, etc., is a commonly recognized fact. |