[WEB4LIB] RE: Why eBooks and When?

[jw]

Re non-linear storytelling:

The paper book forced us to tell stories from page 1 to page whatever,
most often chronologically. Edmund Wilson described Ulysses as a city one
could explore at will, but the reader almost always explores it from page
1 to page 947.

Hypertext will allow us to find new structures, for example, linked
parallel or over-lapping lives. You could use hypertext to tell a story in
four "braids", each braid consisting of x number of segments. You could
read an entire braid chronologically, or move up and down via hyperlinks
to other braids. You would also be able to "spear' novels or stories
through one another, having them share one or more common chapters while
telling quite different tales (http://www.spectacle.org/someone/), or
examine a life in relation to the lives surrounding it
(http://www.spectacle.org/belle/). The possibilities for new structures
are endless, but were constrained purely by the form of the printed book.

Jonathan Wallace