How can we improve on paper?

Founded in 1960, Project Xanadu is the original hypertext project, designed by Ted Nelson.

A pioneer of information technology, a philosopher and a sociologist, Ted Nelson’s ideas were critical to the understanding and development of connected media. As Nelson put it, in ‘Visibly Connected Pages and Documents for a New Kind of Writing’:

Conventional electronic documents were designed in the 1970s by well-funded conventional thinkers at Xerox PARC, who asked: “How can we imitate paper?”

Over a decade before, Nelson asked a completely different question:

How can we improve on paper?

Nelson’s thoughts on, “a new screen literature of parallel, interconnected documents,” are gathered at The Xanadu Parallel Universe. His ideas foregrounded visible connections between parallel screens, allowing the reader to see the relationships that exist between documents.

Tim Berners-Lee’s ‘hyperlink’, whilst inarguably transformative, only delivered a fraction of Nelson’s vision, lacking the visible bridge between pages. Still addressing this shortcoming, Nelson has continued to develop his ideas around Xanadu, stating: “We fight on.”