If you want to get information about the status of an installed manual, you can use the `-s' or `--status' option of install-docs followed by the document id:

$ install-docs -s foo
---document-information---
Document: foo
Abstract: This manual is about foos, bars, and Debian.
Author: Wile E. Coyote
Section: Debian
Title: Debian Foo's Manual

---format-description---
Format: debiandoc-sgml
Files: /usr/share/doc/foo/sgml/foo.sgml.gz

---format-description---
Format: html
Files: /usr/share/doc/foo/html-sgml/*.html
Index: /usr/share/doc/foo/html-sgml/index.html

---status-information---
Control-Files: /usr/share/doc-base/foo (changed: Tue Apr  8 23:09:24 2008)
  

doc-base always creates a /var/lib/doc-base/documents/<document-id> file when installing a document.