History
Historical facts of documentation
“Knowledge is useful, but there is that much knowledge, that the specific need is hidden by the abundance of other knowledge, as long as we are unable to find access to that knowledge. Documentation teaches us how to recover what you have been searching for.”
Every knowledge base and every library consist of an accumulation of files. Therefore, the first approach of organization is a one-dimensional order. To retrieve a specific document you must understand the classification rules of the files. With increasing amount of files the number of rules must increase. This led to the use of keywords and registers.
In this area Fritz Kutter became a pioneer. In 1928, his register of literature for the brewery industry was the first register of this kind. The idea is described in the prologue of his book “5 x W: Wissen: wo- wie – wer- was”, Knowledge: where – how- who – what.
“In 1926 when I was a young chemist at the research lab of the Swiss brewery association, researching and analyzing the basic materials for brewing, I decided to summarize the publications of the specialists in the brewing industry. Just like the “Chemische Zentralblatt” I figured the references would serve every professional. Instead of printing these reviews in journals, which was common at that time, I decided to publish them on cards. They were the foundation of the register, which was growing continuously. In 1928, the first 16 cards appeared in a brewing journal. Every since it was issued on a monthly basis(until 1975).”
The immense effort of creating these cards is hardly imaginable. Especially the electronic data processing is offering means which were not accessible in those days. Without their basic work linked searches would not have as quickly evolved.
“Documentation became one of my hobbies, which forced me to broaden my general education.”
Today, information technology grows into every field of life.
Fritz Kutter