The avalanche-like growth of information that followed the development of computing technology led to significant changes in the work of libraries and archives and required not only a scientific understanding of the technology of dealing with documents, but it also necessitated the comprehension of the subject of research itself – the document. The author underlines significant differences between the book and library collections, which developed historically and were associated with the degree of publicity of the stored documents. However, as scientific and technological progress advanced, the question arose about the creation of a scientific discipline connected with the study of documents and books on a single theoretical basis. The article provides an assessment of the possible integration of document science, archival science, book science and library science in modern conditions. At all times, Russian scholars-documentalists, starting with K.G. Mityaev, resisted the creation of a joint document management science that could combine in its subject both a book and a document; they highlighted the social specifics of the document. However, the information nature of the document and the book allows us to use an interdisciplinary approach to study them, which is why this slant on the issue continues to be supported by librarians. The author draws attention to the fact that such an approach is transdisciplinary to a greater extent, and it is limited to the use of the conceptual and categorical apparatus. The author sees the possibilities of integrating the disciplines of the documentary cycle in the unity of the information process and in its implementation based on modern information technologies within the framework of the documentary systems, which are traditionally studied by document management.