What is literature?

The carrier of human knowledge is recorded by words, graphics, symbols, audio and video, or it is understood as knowledge solidified on a material carrier. Now it is usually understood as the sum of books, periodicals and other publications. Literature is the most effective means of recording, accumulating, spreading and inheriting knowledge, the most basic and main source of information in human social activities, and the most basic means of information exchange and dissemination. Because of this, people call literature the material basis of information work. At home and abroad, we often see people equate literature with information and philology with information science. Although this equivalence may be inappropriate, it reflects the extremely important position of literature in information activities and science.

Method for distinguishing documents

There are many ways to distinguish the type or form of a document:

First, 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. E-books that have appeared in recent years belong to this type. (4) Audio-visual type: also known as direct sense 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.

Two, according to the different publishing forms and contents, can be divided into books, serial publications and special literature.

Books: Any document that is more than 48 pages long and constitutes a bibliographic unit is called a book.

Continuous publications: including periodicals (including core periodicals), newspapers and annual publications.

Special documents: special issue documents, standard documents, dissertations, scientific reports, conference documents, government publications, archives and product materials.

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.

Literature can be divided into first-class literature, second-class literature and third-class literature according to its content, nature and processing mode. Primary literature refers to the original literature created on the basis of the author's own research results, such as periodical papers, research reports, patent specifications, conference papers, etc. Secondary literature is one of the retrieval tools such as bibliography, title record, introduction and abstract. 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 be used as a name/existence.