bobj's reply
February 1995
About this meta-document business. Am I mistaken or is Bob Jansen saying that there us some problem with such a thing? I mean, I don't understand what is wrong with being lost in space (assuming I understand the term). Isn't this what Jay Bolter talks about in Writing Space (1991)?
I think that this idea is desirable and probably inevitable. Just as we cite little hand-held documents within other hand-held documents, the volume of the different hand-held documents together increases until ther is just one big document. Who would care, at that point, about context within a small area? To me, there is only one text NOW. All we are leading up to is a linking of the existing chapters, episodes, acts, etc.
It just occurs to me that I am speaking of something better defined as a mega-document rather than a meta-document. Does this make sense? One text, one document, one discipline, one humanity, etc.