Jay David Bolter’s “The Electronic Book”, calls attention to the change in digital technology and defines hypertext as digital writing and moving information digitally in a non-linear way. On page 10 (92), “The computers, storage devices, and communications equipment must be housed somewhere, but the reader has no need to see the equipment, any more than he or she needs to see the physical plant of the local telephone company.”. The main takeaway of this quote is that even though there is no physical object of what is being stored, it still exists for the user to use. He compares the use of stored devices to making a phone call while seeing a phone company.
Robert Coover’s “The End of Books” talks about the effect of hypertext and how we engage with written content versus digital content. On page 4, it states, “With hypertext, we focus, both as writers and as readers, on structure as much as on prose, for we are made aware suddenly of the shapes of narratives that are often hidden in print stories.”. This quote means that a structured narrative is different because digital content allows the audience to retain and connect the information better than printed stories.
Link to the essay.
