"Writerly" Texts - The reader as a producer of the text.

Role of the Library

            So much is said about "writerly" text, but how about the resources available to house hypertexts?  The library in its conventional form played an important role by housing books and other printed or non-print media.  That was constrained to time and space.

            With hypermedia, the role of the library, in the eyes of Anderson, has changed.  Its new role is equally important, if not more so.  Hypertexts can still be housed in a library, but a virtual one.

            Hypertexts are linked internally and externally without the time and spatial constraints prevalent in printed media.  Links can be created by writers, in terms of references, other media formats, visual, or maps, and so on.  Different writers writing on similar topics can be linked together, thus an active collaboration in writing.

            The readers here will experience multiple links, be it story path or other writers on the same topic.  They have this freedom to move beyond physical space, to be linked to texts created on the other half of the world.  Audio and visual materials pop up instantly at the click of the mouse.  The reader has his choice, and it is this interactivity that makes a wide range of uses by readers possible, be it in different ways.

            Such libraries should provide an infinite variety of linkages, tailoring specifically to the readers’ personal needs.  In other words, as Anderson states, it gives us the freedom to frame knowledge without constraints, rather than the imposed and rigid storage of information conventional libraries used to perform.