THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOCUMENT SCIENCES BEFORE THE EMERGENCE OF DOCUMENTOLOGY AND ITS FORMATION

The article is devoted to the examination of one of the discussion problems of the science of the document: its formation in the conditions of the gradual development of various studies of the document. The purpose of the research: to show the common features and differences in the research of documents of official purpose and documents designed to preserve and disseminate knowledge; to justify the regularity of the emergence of a science that united all areas of document research – documentology. The research is aimed at developing the general theory of the document. The article should refute the widespread opinion that documentology arose only in the 90s of the 20th century, and contribute to the further development of the theory of documentology. The research methodology is based on historical and information-communication approaches, which allows characterizing a document of any purpose at the same time as a historical phenomenon and a product of information-communication activity.  As a result of the study, the regularity of the emergence and unity of the science of the document – documentology, which has several directions of document research, that have formed into independent sciences, is substantiated. The results of the research will be used in educational and practical activities in the fields related to information and documentation. First of all, they will contribute to the definition and discussion of modern theoretical problems of documentology. In practical activities, the implementation of the results achieved by the general theory of the document, in particular the typology of the document, recommendations on the preservation and use of documents, will be promoted in various fields of document science. Consideration of the development of scientific knowledge about the document until the beginning of the 20th century, showed that the science of the document developed gradually in different directions. The most famous and generally recognized is the development of diplomatics, as a science that examines the oldest documents of a diplomatic and legal nature: letters, acts, etc., their texts and originals. Along with diplomatics and on its basis, the disciplines of historical sources studies began to develop: paleography, epigraphy, epistology, codicology, and others. Historical bibliography was one of the disciplines of sources studies. The further development of bibliography proved its independence, self-definition as the science of the book, which also had a synonymous name – bibliography or bibliology. The development of all these scientific disciplines and other knowledge related to practical activities, dedicated to the collection, preservation and use of documents, made it possible at the beginning emergence of a single science about documents – documentology – in the 20th century. Understanding its origins and formation is important for further development and justification of its content in the 21st century.