By Robbie McClintock Appendix - Device Indepenedent Referencing Interactivity is the ballyhoo of hypertext. Its theorists decry the linearity of the printed book. They do so thoughtlessly, and thereby miss both the problem and the opportunity.
Books are highly interactive tools.
Moreover, as interactive tools they are even very efficient. This sequentiality, which writers carefully compose and readers usually follow in a full reading, is an attribute of the text, not the book. The reason many texts are linear has nothing to do with the technology of print. A book as a technological artifact is highly interactive and non- linear. Grab one and you can flop it open in the middle, skip around, and thumb through its pages forwards or backwards.