Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hplabsz!taylor
From: rhorn@infinet.UUCP (Rob Horn)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Hypertext implications
Message-ID: <1273@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 28 Dec 87 23:50:55 GMT
Sender: taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
Lines: 31
Approved: taylor@hplabs

The conjectural hypertext system of Library of Congress would provide
automated facilities that correspond to skills that I was taught under
the description ``Learning to use the Library''.  I can see many
advantages to having nice fast linkages that correspond to the present
practice of footnotes and references.  Some of the better constructed
legal references, like Tribe's _American Constitutional Law_, provide
a good paper analogue.

But I worry that this might become counter-productive.  One of the
greatest advantages to the manual process of following linkages is
that you find and follow linkages that were not created by the author.
The skills included in ``Using the Library'' include skills in finding
and creating your own links.  I personally find these to be just as
important as the links that the author included, especially since I
can create links that are forward in time and that involve information
available to neither of the original authors.

These skills are crucial to success in creative fields.  I remember
MIT having to establish remedial courses to teach these skills to
students from poorer school districts.  The danger in these hypertext
systems would be the atrophy and failure to teach the techniques
needed to create your own linkages.  The temptation would be very
strong to just let the original authors and the computer handle all
that.

This problem is not likely to arise too quickly.  The easiest
implementations would just correspond to automation and enhancement of
the present practice of footnotes and references.  These would
probably remain sufficiently inadequate (:-) to encourage the
continued teaching of the manual skills.

Rob  Horn