DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT DEVICE

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a mechanism which, when managed documents are browsed in cooperative work of a plurality of persons, excludes documents already browsed and used by others to preferentially display documents which have not been browed by anybody.SOLUTION: A document management device connected to a client terminal so as to be able to communicate with the client terminal stores therein document data uniquely associating each document with distinction information capable of showing that the document has been browsed. When receiving a next document display request for display of documents having not been browsed, from the client terminal, the document management device selects one piece of the document data from the stored document data and determines whether the one selected piece of document data stored in document storage means has distinction information or not and, when the one selected piece is determined to not have distinction information, determines the one selected document data as document data which the client terminal from which the next document display request has been received is instructed to display.