A Web of Footnotes — How We Will Read Books in the Future

The technical developing that ’s going to change the way we read constantly is n’t ebooks — it’sfootnotes . For the retiring few months , if you really wanted to understand DC Comics ’ big crossover series Final Crisis , you basically had to learn each way out alongside Eisner - win criticDouglas Wolk ’s blog “ Final Annotations . ”Each time a raw proceeds in the series comes out , Wolk go through Thomas Nelson Page - by - Thomas Nelson Page , carefully documenting what you need to know . Final Crisis curb such an embarrassment of obscure DC Hero and fannish denotation that it actually ask a extremely - educate reader to give you passable back level . This practice of exhaustive online footnoting is one of the less - talked about ways that the internet is profoundly changing the way we interpret books — and not just comic books . First , though , let ’s take a look at how online annotating works . For example : Footnoting the most late issue of Final Crisis , “ subject , ” Wolk save :

Before he was Black Lightning , Jefferson Pierce was an Olympic decathlete , and over the course of study of this story we see him doing a few decathlon - type thing . Jefferson ’s two daughters are Anissa ( smack of the Outsiders ) and Jennifer ( Lightning of the JSA ) . Jefferson was also a high schoolhouse instructor for a while , and by and by the U.S. Secretary of Education under the Lex Luthor administration .

OK , so now you recognise who Black Lightning was . I certainly did n’t know in this granular level of detail before — and nor do many chance comics readers who have n’t set out what amounts to an advanced degree in comics like Wolk . And yet know it enrich the experience of the number , since DC Comics characters are often decennary old and rather complex . Neal Stephenson reflects the annotation urge in his recent novel Anathem . He ’s put part ofthe novel ’s broad glossary online , giving readers a place to go to look up some of the give-and-take he coin to trace life among the scientific discipline monk on another planet . And these kinds of annotations transcend the world of cartoon strip and scifi nerdery . medicine diary keeper Alex Ross released a book last year about twentieth century music hollo The Rest is Noise , which he affix by creating an elaborate , suffer - alone notation website . A massive compendium of twentieth - century musical terms , with definition and illustrative sound single file , his site can be record alongside the book to enrich the experience infinitely . Or it can be absorbed on its own , as a melodic lexicon . There are many other examples : Some created by the source of books , and others like Wolk ’s created by knowledgeable lector . These electronic footer site do not supercede book , but they make reading feel like an learned word rather than a lecture . They also make it possible for authors to compose far more complicated and nuanced books . Confused readers have an easy post to go if they require to interpret a crucial denotation or estimate , while in - the - know readers can have fun adding their own annotations to the web . A civilisation of rearing annotators is n’t exactly what you ’d expect from the World Wide Web , which is still in many mass ’s creative thinker antithetical to record book culture . And yet it seems that our newest media have invigorate what often seems a lost art . The art of footnoting .

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