Jenny Reeder


Annotations and the Complexity of Online History
February 5, 2007, 7:56 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

Last semester we discussed the power of hyperlinks, and I was thrilled at the possibility. I quickly realized, however, that while links are an inherent strength of the Web, scholarly footnotes prove problematic. Although Jenny Lyn Bader cites the power of “clickability,” I agreed with Misha that frenetic button-pushing can lead to attention deficit disorder. While the non-linear, individual-oriented user can control the direction of information-seeking, the scholar loses. Footnotes and hyperlinks are not the same. Rather, as Gertrude Himmelfarb noted, we lose accountability when we lose footnotes.

I’m intrigued by the different ideas of how to deal with scholarly footnotes. I think my favorite option by our own Professor Petrik is the popup. I love the concept of an explanation visibly available, right next to the text in question. I like the idea that I can control the popup according to my own interest–I read some; I leave some. I feel strongly about being able to print the document with the footnotes in place. I think the sidebar is tricky–some footnotes are extremely long and would take up a lot of sidebar.

It’s all about usability and accountability…