A System for Document Reuse

The paper is concerned with issues and methods for reusing document pieces in the process of constructing other document. Asserting that the practice of reuse deserves a central role in the process of document creation, the authors present a document reuse model (DRM) that captures the essential aspects of document reuse. In order to explore and demonstrate the basic functions necessary to implement the model, they build a prototype for the System for Document Reuse (SDR), and use it in constructing actual documents, including this paper. The core idea is that if one can find a good enough reuse model and implement a prototypical system that demonstrates its principles, then one can suggest a shift of focus in the traditional authoring habits for many kinds of documents. That is, from the beginning an author will be writing for reuse, and will be constructing document pieces as the main activity, as opposed to just writing the single document that is needed for now. The model presents the concept of a reuse library, that contains previously written material about some knowledge domain. For the purpose of reuse, the material is divided into independently managed document pieces that are linked to one another. A writer constructs new documents by reusing document pieces from the library and by writing new material that also goes into the library. SDR enables the writer to create, catalog, retrieve, manipulate and link document pieces. As a test of the ideas presented, the tool was used to write this paper, a software maintenance manual, and a seminar, based on the same material. This experience enabled us to explore and understand document reuse, and find better ways to reuse existing material.