Renvois of the past, present and future: hyperlinks and the structuring of knowledge from the Encyclopédie to Web 2.0

Abstract

This article provides a 'long history' of the renvois, an 18th century antecedent of hyperlinked text featured prominently in Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie (1791). It describes the emergence of renvois in the encyclopedias of early modern Europe, traces its expansion over the course of the 20th century through the work of such pioneers as Vannevar Bush, Ted Nelson and Tim Berners-Lee, and looks forward to the potential of renvois as a key component of the semantic web and the growing use of folksonomies online. The article reveals how the use of renvois — both in the 18th century and today — leads to unsettling juxtapositions, contradictions and unexpected meanings, allowing readers to relinquish their position as passive receivers of pre-organized information, to subvert traditional knowledge structures and hierarchies, and to become active and integral participants in the production of knowledge.