Hyperdocumentation

2Hyperdocumentation as a Triumph of Documentality

She passed the two portraits on the secretary’s desk and took a handful of papers from the cassette, the touch of which made her hand shake. These were papers whose physiognomy does not deceive, the papers that are called papers par excellence from the top to the bottom of the social ladder: the real papers, those that tell, authentic historians, the life of a human creature, summarized by these three main acts: birth, marriage, death. (Féval 1863, p. 397, author’s translation)

Hyperdocumentation appears as a pursuit of Paul Otlet’s documentary ideal if considered from a short scientific perspective. But it is also possible to consider it as a pursuit of the human adventure, and thus of its culture, and of its production of traces if we place ourselves in a long perspective.

Everything must be recorded, collected for processing and disseminated later if necessary. This extension of documentary prerogatives is part of a movement that began with the first traces of human activity. In this context, hyperdocumentation is fully in line with the demonstration of the theory of documentality. Indeed, the Italian philosopher Maurizio Ferraris (Ferraris 2013) demonstrated that the document was essential to humanity and that it even constitutes the foundation of our human societies.

2.1. A documentary theory of humanity

Theoretically, the document thus moves from a subordinate, secondary role to a major, essential role. This also involves ...