Literature is all the carriers to record knowledge. Specifically, literature is a combination of words, symbols, images, audio and so on that record knowledge and information on a certain material carrier. From this definition, we can see that literature has three basic attributes, namely, knowledge, record and materiality.

The basic elements of literature are: knowledge with historical value and research value; A carrier; Some methods and means; A system for expressing and recording certain meanings.

People usually understand that literature refers to the sum of knowledge recorded in books, periodicals and laws. Literature is the most effective means of recording, accumulating, spreading and inheriting knowledge, the most basic and main source of information in human social activities, and the most basic means of information exchange and dissemination.

Literature can be divided into printing type, miniature type, machine-readable type and audio-visual type according to the carrier; According to the different publishing forms and contents, it can be divided into books, serial publications and special literature; According to the content, nature and processing depth of documents, documents can be divided into zero documents, first-class documents, second-class documents and third-class documents.