eBooks, Footnotes, Huh?

Having just read The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood on my Kindle DX, I am irked by something I noted in this Kindle ebook and The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind - namely, the footnotes aren't linked or permitted to be seen unless I'm willing to scroll to the end of the book. For someone who likes to know the sources, this makes these eBooks burdensome when compared to the print versions.

And it isn't as if the footnotes could not be linked through the technology being used. I don't know who is responsible for this slothful use of technology in publishing, but I'd really appreciate it if someone spoke slowly to whoever is allowing these books with unlinked footnotes to pass through. It's horrid.

I realize that the vast majority of people probably don't look at the footnotes, though they probably should - just as the Wikipedia requires citation, so do honest and good works of research. My tendency to read those sorts of books is not really relevant: What is relevant is that the authors in both of the above cases went through the trouble of offering footnotes for we readers and in the publishing process they were stepped on without a thought. Is it that the publishing companies don't respect the work of the authors or is it that the publishing companies don't respect the want and need for their readers to follow up on interesting tendrils of thought and exploration that come of footnotes? I do not know. But I do know that I often use footnotes to form my reading list - so if I can't immediately see the citation in its context, that is lost. And who loses? Clearly I do - but so does the entire publishing industry.

It's time for the eBook publishing industry to use the technology to allow for better use of the eBooks. In this case, James Gleick's awesome research is all but spit on - and it's his in depth research that makes his books so worthwhile.

It's broken. Fix it.