Web Readering

We here at the AntiCentenarian love links to accompany our stories. And it turns out that these links are building a new network of information that stretches beyond the web, into how we read most any material, and the information that we seek to find in that material.

Computers and the Internet are changing the way people read. Thus far, search engines and hyperlinks, those underlined words or phrases that when clicked take you to a new Web page, have turned the online literary voyage into a kind of U-pick island-hop. Far more is in store.

Take "Hamlet." A decade ago, a student of the Shakespeare play would read the play, probably all the way through, and then search out separate commentaries and analyses.

Enter hamletworks.org.

When completed, the site will help visitors comb through several editions of the play, along with 300 years of commentaries by a slew of scholars. Readers can click to commentaries linked to each line of text in the nearly 3,500-line play. The idea is that some day, anyone wanting to study "Hamlet" will find nearly all the known scholarship brought together in a cohesive way that printed books cannot.

So, through the resources of the web, we can more-quickly access appended information that comments upon the basic line of thought. We can easily read Hamlet, then access a treasure trove of Hamlet analysis and material. And on the web [with blogs and links] we can tap into that as an organic aspect of the story.

I find, as well, that I select what to read in new ways. Amazon's recommendations, for one thing, change my choices in reading. Or I'll simply Google an author I'm reading, and follow some links until there's another author that appears interesting to me. It's an unending prospect.

No real point to this post. Just interesting.