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

[Richard Wiggins]

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.  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.

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

His 1945 article a joy to read:

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm

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.

/rich


------Original Message------
From: "Gerry Mckiernan" <GMCKIERN at gwgate.lib.iastate.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: February 10, 2001 7:37:31 PM GMT
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Reader-Designated HyperLinking In/Between/Among E-Journals


                    _Reader-Designated HyperLinking_

   In the process of reading/re-reading Web sites describing Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu ® , e.g., 

Professorial Home Page of Ted Nelson
[http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/ ]

Project Xanadu®  [  http://www.xanadu.net/ ]

Ted Nelson and Xanadu ® 
[  http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0155.html  ]

  
  I was struck by a description of the 'Parallel Textface' component of
Project Xanadu®  in a Web essay entitled "The World Wide Web: The Beginning and Now" prepared by  Matt Kazmierski
[ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mattkaz/history/hypertext2.html ].

In his brief overview, Kazmierski noted that the 'Parallel Textface' was 

"unique because it _allowed a *user* to create links between documents_ even if they were *not* related [emphasis added]. 

In considering this statement, it occurred to be that if would be quite beneficial for a reader of an e-article to have the ability to create *personalized* links between segments of an article, and/or to do the same across articles in the same journal and/or provided by the same publisher, and/or to e-journal provided by *other* publishers.

[In a way, this would be a very advanced form of an e-journal Annotation feature within what I call  the 'Eclectic Journal' 

[ http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Web4Lib/archive/0101/0131.html ]]

One could imagine a functionality that would allow a user to mark a section of text in one e-article then to do the same in another e-article and then to automatically create a link between the two segments by an appropriate
right-hand mouse selection and click and/or appropriate keyboard command [Ctrl-L [:->] 

[One could also imagine hyperlinking text to one (or more) multimedia objects (e.g., a QuickTime movie)) 

  I'd be interested in learning if such 'Reader-Designated HyperLinking' exists
in some form or other, particularly in any existing e-journal or one currently being designed or revamped. I would also be interested in learning about any literature or technology relevant to the concept of 'reader-designated hyperlinking'.

  As Always, Any and All contributions, suggestions, critiques, compliments, complaints, queries, Cosmic Insights, etc. are Most Welcome!

  Regards,

/Gerry McKiernan
HyperLinked Librarian
Iowa State University
Ames IA 50011

gerrymck at iastate.edu 

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

BTW: Ted Nelson is credited with coining the word 'hypertext'
and Xanadu ®  is considered by some as an inspiration for the World Wide Web, e.g., 

[ http://www.tfh-berlin.de/~weberwu/ds/TedNelson.html] 
[ http://www.callnetuk.com/home/billkennelly/who.htm ] ]
[ http://www.scope.at/program/speakers/nelson.html]
__________________________________________________
Richard Wiggins
Consulting, Writing & Training on Internet Topics
http://www.netfact.com/rww  wiggins at mail.com
517-349-6919 (home office)  517-353-4955 (work)  
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