在经院哲学出现以前,文献工作就已经有了一千一百年左右的历史。文献工作虽然历史悠久,但正式出现“文献工作”一词只不过八十年光景。1892年比利时的两位律师保尔·欧莱特和汉尼·拉号丹在布鲁塞尔创立了国际书目处,1895年这个处再扩大为国际目录学研究所。这些活动同时也孕育着文献工作。1903年欧莱特在《目录学和文献工作》一文中,首次用“documentation”表示向情报需求者提供文献或参考工具的过程。1907年,他在《情报和文献工作的合理组 Before the emergence of scholasticism, literary work had been about 1,100 years old. Although the literature has a long history, the formal term “documentary work” is only 80 years old. In 1892, two Belgian attorneys Paul Olatt and Hannila Labdan founded the International Bibliography in Brussels, and in 1895 the division was expanded to the International Institute for Bibliography. These activities are also pregnant with the literature. For the first time in 1903 Oralt used the “documentation” in his article “Bibliography and Documentation” to indicate the process of providing documentation or reference tools to informants. In 1907 he was in "a reasonable group of intelligence and literature work