EDITORIAL

The first quarterly issue of The Journal of Documentation was published in June 1945. In an introductory note the first editor, Theodore Besterman, defined a document as ‘anything in which knowledge is recorded’ and documentation as ‘any process which serves to make a document available to the seeker after knowledge’. His experience indicated that librarianship and bibliography, … classification and filing [and] photographic and mechanical methods of reproduction would be some of the channels of documentation which would guide knowledge to the enquirer. His foresight warned him that there would be many other channels. His ambition was that the new journal's attention would not be limited by national boundaries. His wisdom, acknowledging the unpropitious nature of the post‐war times, advised a quiet beginning for such a universal undertaking.