DOCUMENTATION NOTES

A recent article by Kozachkov and Khursin, entitled ‘The basic probability distribution in information flow systems,’ describes the fundamental similarity of a number of known statistical regularities in the flow of information. They propose a basic model, called the ‘hyperbolic ladder’, and relate it, in particular, to work in linguistics by Zipf, in documentation by Bradford, and in the science of science by Lotka. The purpose of this note is to speculate further on the relevance of Zipf's law in librarianship.