Literacy Online: The Promise (and Peril) of Reading and Writing with Computers

This edited volume consists of papers delivered at a conference I organized at the University of Alabama in October 1989, one that was dominated by the excitement (or possibly hype) associated with what was then the relatively new and still strange-sounding term of hypertext. Indeed the self-proclaimed coiner of the term, Ted Nelson, delivered a rambling monologue on how the concept would solve both many of the world's problems (such as organizing and storing global knowledge) and many of his own personal problems, such as being unable to write a coherent essay--the solution to this latter problem was simple: put all your individual thoughts on individual hypercards and let readers organize them as they might. There is a fair amount of editorial intrusion in the volume, in the introduction and conclusion as well as with discussions with the participants following their essays, where my own skepticism seeps through, producing what is arguably a more balanced account, while still reflecting the excitement of an historical moment that most participants felt marked a truly revolutionary change in how we write.