To give you an idea of the atmosphere surrounding hypertexts just a few
years ago, let me briefly explain what happened with my master's thesis.
I started my thesis in 1990. Afternoon had been out for 3 years, the
article in Writing on the Edge was just out, and hypertext was a very
foreign and bizarre concept. While this was (as far as I can tell) the
first Master's thesis on hypertextual structures not possible in a linear
format, it really started out as a sneaky excuse to use the University of
Colorado's equipment to write out and plan Marble Springs.
I carefully chose my advisors as folks who wouldn't mind going along with
a bit of an outlandish idea--write about the inherent possibilities of a
medium that hasn't really been developed yet and use my work to
demonstrate some of these ideas. I read what was available (Writing
Space was particularly intriguing) and interviewed people for ideas and
perspectives. Mark Bernstein, Micheal Joyce, and William Dickey helped
me out tremendously.
Since no one really knew what I was doing, I had free rein, which was
nice. My thesis advisors had not really been around computers (I had to
teach one of them how to use a mouse) and had no idea that writing on the
screen could be any different than writing with pen and ink. So while I
would have far rather spent my thesis defense explaining what people had
done and how you could do so much more, I actually spent most of it
explaining why clicking, animation, and navigation were different from
turning a page.
My thesis advisors got the concepts only after they were demonstrated on
the computer, so I thought, ok, I'll write the whole thing as a
hypertext. That way, I could get the concepts across and still write
about what interested me. I wrote the dissertation in HyperCard and
pasted in screens and animation from William Dickey's poems to show how
movement and navigation became an integral part of the poetic structure.
This worked out great until I hit the brick wall known as the Graduate
School Committee. These gentlemen refused to accept any part of my
thesis whatsoever that was not written on paper. I asked why. They
replied that the library could not store, catalogue, or lend disks. So
I donated several hypertexts to the library, got a friend of mine in
cataloging to fix up a system to loan them out, and went back to the
committee. They acknowledged that the library could indeed handle disks
and could therefore accept a thesis on a disk. I got a pat on the back
and was told to come back tomorrow.
When I went back, they refused to accept my thesis on a disk. I asked
why. They said that it did not meet the format requirements, which had
not been broken in the last century. I asked for specifics. They said,
well it doesn't have one inch margins. I carefully held out a disk,
measured it and said, look, if I use one inch margins then I won't have
any space at all to write. They looked at this and it actually took them
about three minutes to realize that you don't write your thesis on the
outside of a disk. So they said, you idiot, you have to have paper to
have one inch margins.
I sat and very patiently explained that you couldn't explain this on
paper. (Really, I knelt because the three gentlemen had the comfy chairs
and I had to pull out lots of pieces of paper and say see, this goes
here, but it also goes here, and . . .) They said, look, you just spent a
half an hour on a linear discussion of this stuff. Just put that down on
paper, call it a somewhat large intro and we'll take the disk with your
hypertext. No one will want to see the disk of your work, mind you. We
will just judge this on the quality of the paper introduction.
So then I got the bright idea of doing a paper hypertext. Worked out a
pretty good system of connective links for paper. Barely got it approved
from my advisors, who said that I had lost a lot of the hypertextual
ideas and that they understood the possible structures and connections
much better when they were in front of the computer. Got hauled back in
front of the brick wall. Again they refused the disks. Turns out this
time I didn't have sequential page numbers. We went through the whole
thing again. I held my hand against my mouth to refrain from explaining a
few things to these gentlemen.
By this time, it was July 1992 and I had a job lined up if I could only
get that degree in hand by August. So I compromised my ideals and turned
from fighting windmills to grabbing a piece of sheepskin. I handed in a
pretty straightforward, linear, paper introduction to hypertextual poetry
and potential structures as the first part of my thesis and a very rough
first draft of Marble Springs on a MacIntosh disk as the second part of
my thesis. I also made a paper cover for the disk and drew very careful
one inch margins around the cover.
This time, they grudgingly accepted the disk. I asked them if they
wanted back ups. They said, no, one disk was plenty, thank you. About
six months later, my paper thesis showed up on the shelves. The disk was
no where to be found. An unfortunate oversight, I'm sure. So I handed my
friend in cataloguing another disk, and we finally got it into the system.
I went over to the library about a year ago: they still have the paper
part of the thesis but someone took the disk out of the library. My
friend no longer works in cataloguing and the current crowd doesn't want
me to replace it (thank you, no, we'll pass on the free live alligators
was pretty much how they phrased it).