The development of scientific documentation and communication highlights some aspects of the interaction between science and society. Up to the second half of the last century, there has been a general agreement with the linear progress from basic research to technological innovation to economic development; afterwards, this progress has been questioned, together with the cause-effect relationship between science and technology. In supporting research activity, scientific documentation and communication could boast their role in social and economic development; nowadays, this role must be evaluated in a historical perspective and verified in the actual proposal and experimentation of theories and practices. Science is no more considered universal, also under a spatial point of view; scientific documentation and communication show a polyhedric aspect both in the historical development – where information transmission strategies coexist together with those of access to knowledge – and in theories and practices aimed to support the continuum of scientific work, the interaction with ICT, the relationships between science and society.