Document Type
Article
Date
1-1-2005
Keywords
digital documents, Digital storage, Classification, library and information science
Language
English
Disciplines
Library and Information Science
Description/Abstract
Purpose – To introduce the special issue on “Genres of digital documents.” While there are many definitions of genre, most include consideration of the intended communicative purpose, form and sometimes expected content of a document. Most also include the notion of social acceptance, that a document is of a particular genre to the extent that it is recognized as such within a given discourse community. Design/methodology/approach – The article reviews the notion of document genre and its applicability to studies of digital documents and introduces the four articles in the special issue. Findings – Genre can be studied based on intrinsic genre attributes or on the extrinsic function that genre fulfills in human activities. Studies on intrinsic attributes include classifications of genres as clusters of attributes, though these classifications can be problematic because documents can be used in flexible ways. Also, new information technologies have enabled the appearance of novel genres. Studies on extrinsic function include ways to use genre for education or information accesses, as well as the use of genre as a lens for understanding communications in organizations. The four articles in the special issue illustrate these approaches. Originality/value – The paper provides a framework that organizes the range of research about genres of digital documents that should be helpful to those reading this research or planning their own studies. Keywords- Digital libraries, Research, Digital storage, Classification Paper type- General review
Recommended Citation
Barbara H. Kwasnik and Kevin Crowston. "Genres of digital documents: Introduction to the special issue." Information Technology & People 18.2 (2005): 76-88. Available at: http://works.bepress.com/barbara_kwasnik/1 (DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09593840510601487)
Accessible PDF version
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Additional Information
The downloadable article is the final manuscript of Genre of digital documents: Introduction to the special issue in Information Technology & people. All rights reserved to the author(s), Kwasnik, B. & Crowston, K. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09593840510601487 The article is under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Licenses. ”