School of Information Management & Systems
 Previously School of Library & Information Studies

  Michael Buckland, Professor.

 History of Hypertext


Broad treatment:
- Serres, Alexandre. 1995. Hypertexte: Une histoire à revisiter. Documentaliste - Sciences de l'information Vol. 32, no 2:71-83. The commonly held view that hypertext was conceived by Vannevar Bush in 1945, developed by Douglas Engelbart and Ted Nelson, implemented through Hypercard and html simply ignores most of the history of hypertext. Five origins of hypertext are reviewed:
Recent: 1. Documentalists 1930s onwards. 2. Computing, esp. 1960s onwards.
Older: 3. Techniques of printed book design; 4. Utopian plans of universal knowledge; 5. Memorization techniques.

See also:
- Wilhelm Ostwald, 1853-1932, and The Bridge (Munich, 1911-1913): World brain, hypertext, A4.
- T. Hapke. Wilhelm Ostwald, the "Bruecke" (Bridge), and connections to other bibliographic activities at the beginning of the 20th century. Illustrated lecture notes in English.
- Paul Otlet, Pioneer of Information Management.
Go to History of Information Management page or Michael Buckland's Home page