This paper outlines why and how I have used hypermedia technology and the World Wide Web in the construction of my Ph.D. thesis, how the end result compares with my initial aims and what I would do differently if I could start again. I also discuss how I persuaded my supervisor and the University of Wales to accept a doctoral thesis written in HTML and submitted on CD-Rom, and how my examiners coped before and during the viva.
There are also sections about my
perspective of the problems and
potentials of hypermedia writing in
future archaeology. Among the most important challenges
are, in my view, questions of permanent accessibility and necessary changes
of reading habits. The benefits of publishing without commercial publishers,
and making use of non-linear writing, expressing intertextuality, and keeping
the text open-ended and thus 'alive' will become obvious when they are used
more radically than is often the case now.