The Devil's Details (12 page)

A couple of paragraphs later the confusion is compounded and, at the same time, explained. “Indeed the Web has not only revived the footnote, it has spawned a cross-referencing craze that renders the formerly complete media event into a reference-laden, link-dependent, list-spewing, wallflower waiting to be courted by the next available annotator.”
²⁶
The actual footnote,
*
the numbered or asterisked citation or bit of commentary, can be used on the Web, and can be called “footnote” without fostering confusion even if it is accompanied by bright colors, illustrations, and the constant clicking of mice.

On the other hand, the art of annotation is stretched into shapelessness when made analogous to the exuberant cross-referencing, list making, and site linking that occur on a Web crisscrossed with blinking, neonlike come-ons for insurance companies and astrologers and auctions and weather reports and everything else under the digital sun.

The footnote either becomes so new an entity on the Web that it ceases to be a footnote or stays so much the same old footnote that it is likely to be overlooked amid the digital glitter. One can find on-line, for example, Joseph Conrad's
Heart of Darkness
—and the novel has a particularly appropriate title for our first venture into cyberspace. This version of the novel is intended for high school students or college freshmen, some of whom may be part of Ms. Bader's generation of children who happily make their way deep into hyperlinks.

They will find this stopover at
Heart of Darkness
a bit tame, though it
is
useful, and it
is
tastefully done. The illustrations and the text glow with a peaceful and welcome daisy yellow; the words in the text that occasion notes are discreetly underlined; if the print of the text is a trif le small for the easiest reading,
*
the “footnotes,” reached with a simple click, make fine reading. Click on the novel's first mention of Kurtz, a central figure in the story, for instance, and a bar at the bottom of the screen shows three paragraphs of careful description of Kurtz, the words set against a restful blue background. The note is carefully labeled
CHARACTERS
to alert you to the fact that other characters in the story can be “accessed.” You can also click to
THEMES IN HEART OF DARKNESS
, which instantly appear against a soothing green—and high school students and college freshman can use soothing often, maybe even continually.
²⁷
The footnotes act like nothing so much as a discreet butler bringing you a note on a silver tray.

But what if Bader's Web-experienced children go to
www.yahoo.com
instead of
www.acsu.buffalo.edu/csicseri/.com
? A big red
YAHOO
! greets them. Intense blue lettering is everywhere:
YAHOO MAIL. YAHOO! DOMAINS: CLAIM YOUR NAME. GET THE Y! STOCK MARKET TOOLBAR. YAHOO! SHOPPING: FROM APPAREL TO TOYS
. Rhymes and exclamation marks are everywhere.

And so many times, at so many places, your cursor turns unbidden into an eager hand with an exclamation point after it—as if grasping a bright future for you. A news box has:
JERUSALEM CAR BOMB INJURES ONE
. A Marketplace box has:
BID ON A CELEBRITY SMOOCH: ELTON JOHN
…. Perhaps not such an attractive smooch choice for our teenagers. Well then: Britney? There is a list of people to smooch.

And that's without going to the serious stuff, the Arts and Humanities section, the Society and Culture section … or going to the Fantasy games including Survivor and Extreme Football … or going to local Yahoo!s in China or San Francisco Bay … and so on and so forth.

The conventional footnote is in trouble. Going to acsu.buffalo. edu is going on a nature walk with your eighth-grade class;
www.yahoo.com
is hanging out with your friends at the mall.

We know annotating is never going to win if it has to compete with shopping. Moreover, we know footnotes like anything else on the Web can go
poof!
and disappear. Li and Crane in
Electronic Styles: A Handbook for Citing Electronic Information
give fair warning. Again and again the model citations they supply end with “Available” and then the date the site was last accessed. Web sites, like milk cartons, need expiration dates.

And like “the mall,” the Web is educating our preteens, tweens, and teenagers—and our college students. “The Effect of the Web on the Undergraduate Citation Behavior 1996-1999,” a thoughtful and alarming article, appeared on the Web some time before its publication in
The Journal of the American Society for Information Sciences
(JASIS). This writer and his readers have to be grateful for the Web: The article would not have been available in time for it to be quoted in this book if we had to wait for
JASIS
to arrive in the mail; moreover, the Web site has a color photo of the authors that shows them as youthful, friendly, and candid—and sets them looking perfectly at home in front of rows of computers. They are certainly not old fogies who have it in for the new, digital, bookless study hall. Such a photo and the information it conveys are not likely to make it into an academic journal. And it is useful to know they are still relatively young given the import of the article.

The two authors may look friendly but they do not pull any punches. Undergraduate papers in microeconomics between 1996 and 1998 show a serious deterioration in the students' citation behavior. Book citations have dropped dramatically; newspaper citations have increased. “Web citations checked in 2000 revealed that only 18% of URLs cited in 1996 led to the correct Internet document. For 1999 bibliographies, only 55% of URLs led to the correct document.”
²⁸
Students are becoming accustomed to Web “cites” and Web sites are going
poof!
left and right.

One site, purl.access.gov/gpo/lps2768, may have been designed to make the same point. It is supposed to be home for a “Report of the Committee on Automatic and Technology's Subcommittee on Policy and Programs concerning standard electronic citations, 1997”;
*
one would hope, of course, that the report would bring some reassurance that the problem of disappearing sites is being addressed. A search, though, brings forth: “The requested … has been deactivated and cannot be resolved.” Well, neither can the worry of conscientious annotators be resolved.

Doubts of the permanency of virtual footnotes remain with this writer even though two experienced and inventive computer experts have offered reassurances. The first, John Blankenbaker, a longtime advocate of the computer who has been designated the creator of “the first commercially available personal computer” by The Computer Museum of Boston, speaks quite directly to the problem. “How permanent is the Web and the information that it has?” he asks. “I do not believe it is permanent,” he answers without blinking an eye. Even if Web sites (or Web cites, perhaps) are backed up by disks of one kind or another, technological changes can make them unreadable in the future: “Who can read a five-and-a-half-inch floppy disk now?” Mr. Blankenbaker asks rhetorically and then adds: Paper and microfilm “aren't permanent either … the old vellum has stood the test of time better than anything … even … marble inscriptions are disappearing ….”
²⁹
The implication, of course, is that literacy, literature, scholarship, the footnote itself have survived the crumbling of marble, acid rain on paper, and the whims of publishers: Footnotes will survive the Web. I am not reassured.

The second expert, John Laux, a digital technologist and theorist, offers a plan that I am going to call the Laux Redundancy Plan: Footnotes at one site could be also stored in, say, fifty other sites around the world. “So ten years down the line, if we lose twenty of them we can still retrieve your [footnotes],”
³⁰
a kind of safety net will be hung under the threatened footnote.

We know we are going to want to preserve some footnotes for centuries; for these treasures, fifty backups seems a perilously small number. One hundred or even one thousand backup sites might be more sensible; we might indeed hope to keep a backup on microfilm or even vellum. Obviously what is called for at this historic juncture is a well-funded, broadly representative international committee to explore and establish a policy for the encouragement and preservation of the venerable (and vulnerable) footnote. A first step toward such a committee might be an informal Web site to facilitate networking and planning; this Footnotes On Redundancy site, or FOR, should be simple and accessible; its address—if not already taken—should be
www.footnoteredundancy.com
.

This site can begin the necessary organizing and people-to-people linking that a successful footnote movement will require. Success is not a certainty, but we can take hope from the long history of the footnote; the footnote is a tough old bird and is not going the way of the auk or the dodo; surely it is going to learn to fly once again in virtual reality—proud, virile, and redundant.

1. See M. H. Dodds, “
Footnotes
,”
Notes and Queries
, 19 October 1910. I have not located the actual footnote volume of the Reverend Hodgson.

2. Mark Amory, ed.,
The Letters of Evelyn Waugh
(New Haven, Conn.: Ticknor & Fields, 1980), p. 573.

3. Daniel Bell,
The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting
(New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 349.

4. William James,
The Principles of Psychology
(Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), p. 7.

5. H. J. Paton,
The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant's Moral Philosophy
(New York: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 69.

6. Edmund Lodge, Esq., K.H., Norroy King of Arms, F.S.A.,
Illustrations of British History, Biography, and Manners, in the Reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth, & James I, exhibited in a series of Original Papers, selected from the Mss., of the Noble Families of Howard, Talbot, and Cecil; containing among a variety of interesting pieces, a great part of the correspondence of Elizabeth and Her Ministers with George Sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, during the fifteen years in which Mary Queen of Scots, remained in his custody
(London: John Chidley, 1837), p. 316.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. G. W. F. Hegel,
Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art
, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), p. 12.

10. Daniel Bell,
The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting
(New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 36.

11. Clarence J. Karier, “
John Dewey and the New Liberalism: Some Reflections and Responses
,”
History of Education Quarterly
, winter 1957, p. 442. See also Charles L. Zerby, “
John Dewey and the Polish Question: A Response to the Revisionist Historians
,”
History of Education Quarterly
, pp. 17-30.

12. Thomas McFarland, “
Who Was Benjamin Whichcote? or, The Myth of Annotation
,” in
Annotation and Its Texts
, ed. Stephen A. Barney (Oxford, New York, and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 160.

13. Ibid., p. 161.

14. Ibid., p. 160.

15. Ibid., p. 163.

16. Ibid., p. 164.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid., p. 170.

19. Ibid., p. 164.

20. Ibid., p. 177.

21. Ibid.

22. See ibid., p. 162.

23. Ibid., p. 156.

24. Anthony Grafton,
The Footnote: A Curious History
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 5.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid., p. 6.

27. Ibid., pp. 7-8.

28. Ibid., p. 111.

29. Ibid., p. 56.

30. Ibid., p. 114.

31. Ibid., p. 70. Grafton indicated that three other scholars have used the quip; it can be assumed that many more have passed it along to their doctoral candidates who, scared and lonely as they often are, do not trust any footnote; one can always go wrong and become a dark and menacing stalker, one who doesn't bother to ring the doorbell but clambers into the study through any handy window or by way of a cellar door.

32. Vincent Tomas, “
The Modernity of Jonathan Edwards
,”
The New England Quarterly
, 10 March 1952, p. 76.

1. Gamini Salgado,
The Elizabethan Underworld
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), p. 11. The narrow focus on criminal life in Salgado's delightful book does not prevent it from giving us a broad and amusing sense of London life.

2. Ibid., p. 7.

3. For a succinct account of Richard Jugge's life, see Colin Clair,
A History of Printing in Britain
(London: Cassell, 1965), pp. 69-72. References in this book will always give actual page numbers. The term
passim
will not be used to indicate “and pages following.” What might seem merely convenient shorthand often conceals information—that is, the amount of attention given to a subject, a fact a reader might need in order to decide whether or not to hunt down the reference.

4.
Domestic State Papers. Elizabeth
. vol. XLVIII, 6, in Colin Clair,
A History of Printing in Britain
(London: Cassell, 1965), p. 71.

5.
R. W. Scribner
,
For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation
(Cambridge, London, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne, and Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 82.

6. Ibid., pp. 83-4.

7. Gamini Salgado,
The Elizabethan Underworld
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), p. 1.

8. Ibid., p. 35. I remind the reader of my intention to modify Elizabethan spelling; the original reads: “… araied in purple and skarlat, & guilded with golde, & precious stones, and pearles, and had a cup of golde in her hand, ful
g
of abominations” and “
f
This woman is the Antichrist, that is, the Pope with ye whole bodie of his filthy creatures, … whose beauty onely standeth in outwarde pompe & immprudencie and craft like a strumpet ….” Though it may cause difficulty,
guilded
has been allowed to stand because this spelling associates
gild
with
guilt
and
guild
. Care must be exercised in the era of Shakespeare and Donne not to drain the words of the full range of their colors simply for the sake of immediate clarity. Reference marks also have been omitted, as they distract and are irrelevant to our purposes.

9.
The Holie Bible Conteynyng the Olde Testament and the Newe
[Bishops' Bible] (1568), sig. *I[t], in Evelyn B. Tribble,
Margins and Marginality: The Printed Page in Early Modern England
(Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1993), p. 38.

10. Evelyn B. Tribble,
Margins and Marginality: The Printed Page in Early Modern England
(Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1993), p. 43.

11. Most of the time the convenience of the reader dictates that each separate citation be given a separate footnote. This paragraph is an exception. All of the diverse citations come to me from a single source: D. F. McKenzie, “
Printers of the Mind: Some Notes on Bibliographical Theories and Printing-House Practices
,”
Studies in Bibliography
, vol. 22, 1969. This grouping of citations alerts the reader to the fact that I make no claim to original research, a claim that a trail of footnotes through the paragraph might make unwittingly. The references in order of appearance: 1. E. S. Furniss,
The Position of the Laborer in a System of Nationalism
(1920), p. 234: see McKenzie, note 15, p. 11. (McKenzie asserts in the footnote: “The contemporary evidence cited by Furniss is full and detailed.”) 2. For Thomas Manly see D. C. Coleman, “
Labour in the English Economy of the 17th Century
,”
Economic History Review
, 2nd ser. VIII (1956), pp. 280-95: McKenzie, note 15, p. 11. 3. For “anonymous,” see
Some Thoughts on the Interest of Money
, cited by Furniss. 4. For Benjamin Prince, see “
Notes on Printing at Cambridge, c. 1590
,” trans. Cambridge Bibliographical Society III (1959), p. 102: McKenzie, note 17, p. 11. McKenzie's introductory comments appear in note 17.

12. D. F. McKenzie, “
Printers of the Mind: Some Notes on Bibliographical Theories and Printing-House Practices
,”
Studies in Bibliography
, vol. 22, 1969, p. 9.

13. Michael Clapham, “
Printing
,”
A History of Technology
, vol. III, ed. Charles Singer et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 391.

14. Penny Roberts, “
Agencies Human and Divine: Fire in French Cities, 1520-1720
,”
Fear in Early Modern Society
, ed. William G. Naphy and Penny Roberts (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 13.

15. Christopher R. Friedrichs,
The Early Modern City 1450-1750
(London and New York: Longman, 1995), p. 278.

16. Penny Roberts, “
Agencies Human and Divine: Fire in French Cities, 1520-1720
,”
Fear in Early Modern Society
, ed. William G. Naphy and Penny Roberts (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 14.

17. Friedrichs, ibid., p. 278.

18. Roberts, ibid., p. 22.

19. E. Rayher of Northfield, Massachusetts, a present-day printer experienced in the use of small presses and in the casting of type, assures me that the cost of type at that time would justify the added difficulty of separate casts for each element of the (f). Admittedly, he made his observations using a microfilm copy of the Bible, and so his opinion is not to be taken as conclusive.

20. Gamini Salgado,
The Elizabethan Underworld
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), p. 78.

21. Thomas Ross,
Natural and Artificial Conclusions
(1567), in ibid., p. 75.

22. Michael Clapham, “
Printing
,”
A History of Technology
, vol. III, ed. Charles Singer et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 395.

23.
The Holie Bible
[microform] (London: Richard Jugge … [1568] ), pagination unreadable. The first footnote is on the first page of the book of Job;
fent, fanctified
, and
faide
, in the original, have been changed to
sent, sanctified
, and
saide
.

24. See Gamini Salgado,
The Elizabethan Underworld
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), p. 26, for details.

25.
The Holie Bible
[microform] (London: Richard Jugge … [1568]), pagination unreadable. The first footnote is in the first page of the book of Job. (Minor changes in spelling have been made.)

26. Colin Clair,
A History of Printing in Britain
(London: Cassell, 1965), pp. 71-2.

27. Ibid, pp. 71-2.

28. William Martyn,
The Historie and Lives of the Kings of England: From William the Conqueror, unto the end of the Raigne of King Henry the Eighth
(London: James Boler, 1628), unpaginated.
F
's have been changed to S's when appropriate;
account
is
accompt
in the original.

29. Ibid., Epistle Dedica'torie
[sic]
, unpaginated.

30. William Martyn,
The Historie and Lives of the Kings of England: From William the Conqueror, unto the end of the Raigne of King Henry the Eighth
(London: James Boler, 1628), p. 191.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. Roger Widdrington,
A Theologicall Disputation Concerning the Oath of Allegiance
,
dedicated to the most Holy Father Pope Paul
the fifth,
Wherein All The Principall arguments which have hitherto beene brought by Cardinall
Bellarmine, Leonard Leffius, Martin Becanus,
and divers others, against the new
Oath of Allegiance,
lately established in England by Act of Parliament, are sincerely
, perspicuously, and exactly examined (London[?]: E. Allde[?], 1613), unpaginated.

34. Ibid., p. 45.

35. John Rainolds,
The OVERTHROW OF STAGEPLAYES By the way of controversie betwixt D. Gager and D. Rainoldes [sic], wherein all the reasons that can be made for them are notably refuted; the observations answered, and the case fo[r] cleared and resolved, at what the judgement of any man, that is not forward and perverse, may easilie bee satisfied. WHEREIN IS MANIFESTLY proved that it is not onely unlawfull to be an Actor but a beholder of those vanities
(Oxford: John Lichfield, 1629), p. 25.
F
's are changed to S's,
U
's to
V
's.

36. Ibid., p. 52. The note is a long, nervous explanation of why Rainolds had the audacity to insert a word in one of his citings of Gager's letter. “… I take the omitting thereof … to be a slippe of your penne, and therefore doe insert it.” At just this point the margin gives out; the note curls into something that resembles a respectful bow. (
F
's changed to S's.)