Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!elroy!cit-vax!ucla-cs!zen!ucbvax!BFLY-VAX.BBN.COM!dm From: dm@BFLY-VAX.BBN.COM.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Filtering A Global Hypermedia Network Message-ID: <8711191732.AA25330@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Date: Thu, 19-Nov-87 12:34:38 EST Article-I.D.: bu-cs.8711191732.AA25330 Posted: Thu Nov 19 12:34:38 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 21-Nov-87 16:41:57 EST References: Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 34 Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but these referees sound very much like two things: 1) a good reference librarian. 2) a good editor of an eclectic journal (e.g., Harper's or the Atlantic). Indeed, when one is just ``interested in things'' one goes to a magazine like Harper's and browses (Harper's and the Utne Reader are particularly well suited for this). I would expect that hypermedia will have the equivalent: people who prospect the fields of hypermedia and leave behind a trail that others can follow to the gold. Ted Nelson's hypertext project, Xanadu, devotes a great deal of attention to royalties in order to encourage this practice. Until computer programs are interesting companions in their own right, I'll bet people will be able to do this better. When one is researching a particular project, the services of a good research librarian are invaluable. Research librarians come in two flavors: generalists (the kind you'll find at the public library) and specialists (the kind you'll find in a university department's reading room or library). These people are experts at gleaning information from the library. They spend many years learning their trade and learning their library. In designing a hypertext filter, it is the expertise of these people that you'll want to tap. I expect that in the hypertext morass, there will still be people you go to whose expertise and advise will guide you through the twisty maze of hypertext links to the valuable information. Those people will develop tools to bring to bear to help you find your way to your goal (there's a REASON it's called library SCIENCE (though it should probably be called ``library engineering'')). Now THERE would be an expert system to develop...