Complex information processing: a file structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate
ACM '65 Proceedings of the 1965 20th national conference
Proceedings of the fourteenth ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia
Feral hypertext: when hypertext literature escapes control
Proceedings of the sixteenth ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia
What the geeks know: hypertext and the problem of literacy
Proceedings of the sixteenth ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia
A user-centered design of a personal digital library for music exploration
Proceedings of the 10th annual joint conference on Digital libraries
Stigmergic Hyperlink: A New Social Web Object
International Journal of Information Systems and Social Change
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Over the past couple decades, as the term "hypertext" has gained a certain popular currency, a question has been raised repeatedly: "What is hypertext?" Our most respected scholars offer a range of different, at times incompatible, answers. This paper argues that our best response to this situation is to adopt the approach taken with other terms that are central to intellectual communities (such as "natural selection," "communism," and "psychoanalysis"), a historical approach. In the case of "hypertext" the term began with Theodor Holm ("Ted") Nelson, and in this paper two of his early publications of "hypertext" are used to determine its initial meaning: the 1965 "A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate" and the 1970 "No More Teachers' Dirty Looks." It is concluded that hypertext began as a term for forms of hypermedia (human-authored media that "branch or perform on request") that operate textually. This runs counter to definitions of hypertext in the literary community that focus solely on the link. It also runs counter to definitions in the research community that privilege tools for knowledge work over media. An inclusive future is envisioned.