[WEB4LIB] RE: Reader-Designated HyperLinking In/Between/Among E-Journals

[Gerry Mckiernan]

Hello Richard/

>>> Richard Wiggins <wiggins at mail.com> 02/10/01 11:08PM >>>
>Vannevar Bush pioneered the notion of user-defined links -- only he called >them "trails" -- and he came up with the notion in the 1940s.  His essay "As >We May Think" is a remarkable vision for its time. 

   Yes, Indeed! I should have also noted Bush's vision in my posting

> He describes a photo-mechanical device, a sort of machine in a desktop >that could eat all the documents you could feed it, indexing the material, but >more importantly recording all the associations -- the trails -- that a user >creates while navigating the material.

      I recently read an excellent book that analyzes Bush's vision as well as other regarding hypertext [ From Memex to hypertext : Vannevar Bush and the mind's machine /  edited by James M. Nyce, Paul Kahn. Boston : Academic Press, c1991.  [  ISBN 0125232705  ]

[  http://my.linkbaton.com/isbn/0125232705?for=charity  ]

>The PC and the Web are still a long, long way from that vision.

          Yes, but Stay Tuned ...


>His 1945 article a joy to read:
>http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm 

    Yes. [I believe that you find the book noted above equally enjoyable and 
worthwhile!]

>Some related pieces on computer visionaries...
>http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/tech.htm 
>Bush was a remarkable scientist and FDR's science advisor, probably the >single most important person in the creation of the National Science >Foundation.  

>Bush is at least as important as Ted Nelson in the history of >hypertext... >The Kazmierski piece you mention does cover Bush before >Nelson.

       Yes. There are a number of excellent biographic sources about Bush
on the Web [how appropriate!]
For example
 Hypertext and Hypermedia: Precursors of the Web by David M. Bucknell

           [     http://www.iteachnet.com/historyofhyper.html ]

      Thanks again for your interest in my posting and for your contribution!

/Gerry McKiernan
Hyper Librarian 
Iowa State University 
Ames IA 50011

gerrymck at iastate.edu 

      Don't Confuse Opportunity with Ability nor Ability with Opportunity.

c: Web4Lib