Where are the Hypertexts?

These notes are adapted from my Hypertext '99 keynote talk, delivered in Darmstadt, Germany on February 23, 1999. Excerpts from the talk, adapted for the Web, are available in primitive form -- a better Web implementation should be available later.

If you have questions or comments on these ideas, I'd be very happy to hear from you. Email me at bernstein@eastgate.com .

Open Issues For Hypertext Research

1. Visualization: seeing and manipulating structure
2. Enactment: seeing and manipulating dynamics
3. Collaboration, graffiti, component systems
4. Log analysis and user models
5. Tension and excitement
6. Real criticism of real hypertexts
7. Reactive hypertexts
8. Spead the word: write hypertexts

Web Sites from Jan's Talk

Several of the stories in "Where Are The Hypertexts?" touch on a (fictitious) lecture given by Jan, one of the characters. Jan's slides mention several notable Web sites whose diverse and unexpected rewards would be difficult to anticipate in a search strategy. "I couldn't search for these", Jan explained, "because I didn't know I needed to find them." The Web sites Jan mentioned include the following:

22 Notable Books

This list includes some of the books mentioned in the talk that are especially interesting to students of hypertext. Because of space limitations, I list primarily titles that have not been cited much in the hypertext literature.

Chieko's book bag: Steven Johnson, Interface Culture | Esther Dyson, Release 2.0 | Gamma et al., Design Patterns.

Weiss's book bag: Anthony Grafton, The Footnote | Bolter and Grusin, Remediation

Ted's book bag: Hypertext '98 Proceedings | Deena Larsen, Samplers | Stephanie Strickland, True North | Shelley Jackson, Patchwork Girl

Jan's book bag: Espen Aarseth, Cybertext | Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics

Others: Fred Kilgour: The Evolution of the Book | Richard Lanham, The Electronic Word | Michael Joyce, Of Two Minds | Silvio Gaggi, From Text to Hypertext: Decentering the Subject | Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies | Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading | Reeves and Nass, The Media Equation | David Mamet, Three Uses of the Knife | Brenda Laurel, Computers and Theater | John Gardner, The Art of Fiction | Theodor Holm Nelson, Literary Machines | Theodor Holm Nelson, The Future of Information

Character design by Christopher Baldwin, creator of Bruno.

What's New

A rough adaptation of my Hypertext '99 keynote lecture slides is available on the Web.

Additional pictures from Hypertext '99, thanks to Prof. Jocelyn Nanard!

Pictures from Hypertext '99 are now available.

A list of some of the books mentioned in the talk has been added to this page.

At Eastgate, we create new hypertext technologies and publish serious hypertext, fiction and non-fiction: serious, interactive writing.

Eastgate hypertexts are original creations of some of today's finest and most innovative writers. They're written for the medium, not adapted from print.

Eastgate hypertexts are read and studied by people interested in the future of writing all over the world. Our hypertexts run on almost all personal computers, and include everything you need.

Storyspace, our hypertext writing tool, is used worldwide for designing serious hypertexts -- on the Web and off. Where other tools design pages, Storyspace helps you design effective hypertext structures that communicate and delight.

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