Re: The value of navigability (related to META...)

nicka@mccmedia.com (Nick Arnett/Multimedia Computing Corp.)
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Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 10:40:41 +0200
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From: nicka@mccmedia.com (Nick Arnett/Multimedia Computing Corp.)
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Subject: Re: The value of navigability (related to META...)
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At  8:00 PM 6/6/94 +0200, Bert Bos wrote:

>The issue is more subtle than this. A colleague of mine, who is an
>expert in these things, likes to start his lectures on SGML and TEI
>with examples from pre-Gutenberg and early printed scholarly works, to
>show the navigational aids that were lost when printing became
>mechanized. Those books are pure Hypertext! On one page you could find
>basically everything that was ever written on, say, Genesis 1:1,
>logically mapped out, with cross references, annotations and
>annotations-on-annotations, textual variants and bibliographic
>references.

To preserve some semblance of brevity, I didn't mention that one of the
great frustrations for mendicant scholars studying illustrated manuscripts
was that each library had its own methods of indexing and linking.  Sound
familiar?  ;-)

> |I don't mean to give short shrift to typography, layout, etc.  We should
> |all remember that eventually, printing technology gave us the kind of
> |quality that was present in illustrated manuscripts, though it was
> |centuries in coming.  I understand very well the importance of appearance,
> |in part to make documents readable, not just merely attractive.  But today,
> |as we invent this new means of communication, navigability is far, far more
> |important.

>PS. I like the last sentence of Nick's <a href=
>"http://198.92.133.3/mendicants.html"> Mendicant Sysops in
>CyberSpace</a>, which reads:
>
>  "While starting a new venture in information navigation, Arnett is"

That's odd.  It works from here...  What browser & platform are you using?

The rest of that sentence is *important*!  ;-)  It is:  "also working on a
project to begin <A
HREF="http://nearnet.gnn.com/global-tea-party/sarajevo.html">rebuilding the
Sarajevo library via the Internet</A>."

And then there's a copyright notice...!

Nick


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Campbell, California
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