Hypertext

2. Imagine a typical academic textbook. It will have a contents page, an introduction, footnotes on each page and maybe notes at the end of each chapter. It may be composed of half a dozen separate chapters (which could even be written by different people). It might also have pictures or diagrams with captions. In addition, it is likely to have at least one index, a bibliography, and a list of suggestions for further reading. 

3. When we use such a book, we are unlikely to read it continuously. We consult a chapter, then at a certain point in the text the author might quote from someone else's work. The source of this information will be recorded as a chapter endnote, which we might wish to consult. So, breaking off our reading, we look at the endnote, where the author gives us the source - and maybe adds some words of comment. We might even find ourselves referred to the work of yet another author. To follow this link we could then turn to the bibliography and perhaps make a note of the work which was being cited. 

4. This is a simplified form of hypertext. We are following links placed in the text which lead us from one point to another, either within the text or beyond. We do not necessarily read the book continuously, from cover to cover. You can probably imagine other examples. Older editions of the Bible for instance were produced with a 'critical apparatus' in their margins - the notes and observations of earlier scholars passing comment on alternative interpretations or translations of a passage. Even a government report might have references within it to maps, statistical tables, research findings, earlier reports, scientific evidence, and a bibliography of data. We move from one section of the report to another, enlarging our understanding or following a particular trail of enquiry which reflects our interest in the contents of the text. 

5. You can probably see from these simplified examples that the essence of hypertext lies in the assembly of information in structures which are non-linear. There will also be some form of links between its elements which allow any number of paths to be traced. You might also have noticed that their hypertextuality 'ends' at that point within a text where it refers to something beyond itself. There is an important distinction to be made here between what Roy Rada calls 'small-volume' and 'large-volume' hypertext. 
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6. Small-volume hypertext is a single document with explicit links between its parts. This could be a book or a computer program whose sections were linked. The important issue is not the size of the individual document, but the fact that it is self-contained. It might be a huge encyclopaedia, with cross-references embedded in all its entries. It could be a computer program of the kind we find under Windows HELP or in the tutorial pages of a word-processor, with an alphabetical index, highlighted words with pop-up definitions, and cross-links between entries. 

7. Large-volume hypertext on the other hand makes links with information outside itself. The catalogue index to a library for instance lists bibliographic information about all its holdings. When we retrieve a book from the shelves it is likely to contain references to other books, listed in its bibliography. These could be in another part of the library, but many of them will be in different libraries altogether, possibly scattered throughout the world. Immersing ourselves in such a system usually requires that we develop searching skills to track down the information. 

8. When we read the reference in a footnote for example, we often wish the other text was to hand for consultation. And we know that this secondary text might well point us towards a third, dealing with the same subject. But the works themselves are not immediately available, and to retrieve them might take days, even weeks. Just try to imagine for a moment a system in which all these secondary materials could be summoned instantly, and any further texts to which they referred were immediately accessible too. Now that's real hypertext! 

9. This was the system imagined by American scientist Vannevar Bush in his article 'As We May Think' published in 1945 as he speculated on post-war technological development [there's that military link again]. His vision was modelled on the metaphor of a desktop with instant access to any information via microfiche. (This was the most advanced technology at the time.) He called this the Memex machine: 

A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his [sic] books, records, and communications...Most of the contents are purchased on microfilm ready for insertion. Books of all sorts, pictures, current periodicals, newspapers, are thus obtained and dropped into place...And there is provision for direct entry. On the top of the memex is a transparent platen. On this are placed longhand notes, photographs, memoranda ... 

If the user wishes to consult a certain book, he taps its code on the keyboard, and the title page of the book promptly appears before him, projected onto one of his viewing positions. Frequently-used codes are mnemonic, so that he seldom consults his code book; but when he does, a single tap of a key projects it for his use ... Any given book of his library can thus be called up and consulted with far greater facility than if it were taken from a shelf. 

11. These ideas lay dormant until the 1960s - though we may note that the computer and the communications technology which would eventually make them a reality was being developed during this time. They were taken up (once again in theory) by another visionary, Ted Nelson, who argued that such access to information via computers and the Internet would have revolutionary effects. First, it would democratise information technology, because this combination of free access and linkage between texts meant that anybody could assemble and promulgate whatever ideas they wished. And anybody else, without restriction, could have access to them. 

12. Nelson's second important observation was that creating, distributing, and consuming information in this way would raise questions of intellectual property rights. The moment information is made available on the Internet, it is almost impossible to monitor or control the way other people use it. Nelson devised a project, perhaps unhappily named "Xanadu", which sought to establish a royalty payments system for authors based on the use of their work. His enthusiasm and his ideas have never been translated into concrete practice, but he continues to proselytize [from a base in Japan] and his theories have undoubtedly been influential. 

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