Could be that the shift is largely illusory. Sure, I can enter the hypertextual museum via a variety of gates--if I can find anything but the entry gate using my search engine, that is--but once I'm in, that docent starts to act big: she has already determined which halls are accessible and which paths, preblazed, I may take through them. Once in a node, I may ride any of, let's say, three links out. Only those three. Sometimes, I may even be sent shooting down a hallway quite against my will, as when a link is set to shoot me spinning through cyberspace when I chance to hover my cursor over it, even briefly. The docent's voice has circumscribed the possiblities before I've even begun the tour. Can't even really choose to ignore her in favor of wandering off on my own as I might on a traditional tour. Nope, she controls even my getting lost, which I can do in one of x number of finite ways, according to her predetermined plan.

I'm laughing at myself, because I think I've just inadvertently articulated why framed pages get under my skin--they won't let me out, even when I've found an alluring exit. I can fight my way out, of course, but maybe that's the crux of it: hypertext, by defining every swirl of interpretation ahead of time, can make reading against the grain (reading agonistically and antagonistically) much more difficult.

In their tendency to be multiply and changeably and infinitely authored, email lists (maybe BB's, too, if they are vital) strike me as the most hypertextual of all, even though their links (to each other, at least) are generally not clickable anywhere but in the archived version.

Kathy at C.O.D.

lirvin@accdvm.accd.edu wrote:

Aside from defining what exactly "hypertext" is (which others are doing very well), what I am most interested in about hypertext is the way in which it changes the relationship and role of the writer and reader. Consider this analogy of reading/writing to that of a museum visitor and museum curator/docent: In our print-based, linear setting, the visitor/reader enters the museum/text and decides to take the tour from the docent/writer. The docent/writer leads the visitor/reader through the rooms of the museum according to their (the docent/writer's) sequence--page to page, chapter to chapter, period room to period room. In the hypertext setting, the visitor/reader enters the museum and wanders wherever they wish. There is no guided tour. However, as they enter different rooms the docent/writer appears to talk to them. I don't know if this is an accurate or helpful analogy, but it seems to capture the profound change that occurs in hypertext to the writer/reader relationship. Lennie Irvin San Antonio College