The Nature of Hypertext

[bruno at chemcrys.cam.ac.uk]

I'd like to raise an issue that crossed my mind when it should have
been occupied with sleep last night.

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. I think it safe to say that 
the concept of Hypertext precedes the WWW. I know of PhD research projects 
that have been concerned solely with analysing how people use hypertext 
systems, how people approach authoring hypertext documents and whether it is
possible to conceive an automatic method of generating hypertext
documents from 'straight' text. I have also had the dubious honour of 
attempting to convert a Masters dissertation into hypertext (as part of 
one of the aforementioned studies). It isn't always easy especially if
you are not allowed to rearrange the text in any way. 

One of the ideas of hypertext is that the concept of a page is done away
with. I still tend to view hypertext documents in terms of pages; 
I wonder if others do. 

I often find something on the WWW that I want to print off and read
away from the computer. Sometimes this isn't easy, particularly if a document 
is spread across more than one HTML file (as sometimes happens with papers 
presented at electronic conferences).

These issues possibly apply more to resources such as journals than they do
to some other applications, but:

   How 'ready' is the scientific community to change the way it approaches
   'written' texts?

   How prepared is the scientific community to glean information from
   a computer screen and not worry about having a hard copy?

   To what extent are these barriers to the promotion of WWW resources?

   Are there issues relating to the design of HTML documents that we need to
   consider in relation to this, be it in the conversion of existing
   'straight' texts or in the design of HTML documents from scratch?

Any comments anyone?

Ian Bruno
CCDC
 
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