(2009-01-18) Johnson Connected Book

Steven Johnson on the coolness of being able to link to a specific book-page (e.g. from an original Joseph Priestley book) in Google Book Search. But what you can see happening, slowly but surely, is the Memex and Xanadu and the Information Superhighway - all those inspiring dreams of information utopia - finally crossing crossing over into the vast universe of books. Slowly, over time, a page typeset in 1771 might start to get a whole new life, thanks to the growing authority we grant it through that elemental gesture of making a link. I Commented on the irony of his own book having to wait to go out of print before it will fall under the Google Book SearchSettlement. (Information Ecosystem Roadmap)