named and use of resolv.conf? - how to "learn" this

[Spumonti Spumonti]

(I've done several searches for this first but the general nature of some of these terms returned way too many non-relevant responses)

I was recently told that named does not use resolv.conf when resolving names. This was not something I was aware of but at this point I accept that. The system in question is an authoritative only server, no recursion enabled, that for some zones it hosts, lists secondary name servers in other organizations (in other words these name servers are in zones NOT hosted on this server)

My real question is: where is this documented? I've read DNS books and scoured different sites but couldn't find anything stating this was how named behaved. Maybe I just suck at searching for things or was using imprecise terms.