This is generally agreed to be valuable and most major publishers have active programs in the area of citations. It will be some time before this process stabilises as there are unsolved problems. For example, retrospective markup, charging mechanisms for access and hyperlinks between different publishers require resolution. A general solution lies in the realms of science fiction although solutions may come quicker than some of us imagine. We have made a start through the use of terminology applied through hyperlinks.
Much electronic markup is lost when printing on paper.
For example, linked terms are no longer active and it is impossible to reconstruct their target. An interesting experiment in preserving electronic markup is described by John Seely-Brown6 where he proposes encoding the markup with tiny glyphs . On paper, glyphs can either mirror the printed information or carry extra detail. Thus, documents can carry information from the digital world through paper and back in a robust and efficient process6. These new technologies are addressing the problems of distributed information.