Against "literature": Birkerts's "endless rants against any minor innovation in reading since the invention of the printing press sealed my pact with myself to never become an avid reader of literature proper"

Points to the need for a "history of reading": see http://www.italynet.com/columbia/ecopage.htm

Eco's response to Birkerts: a reminder of Plato's story on the invention of writing, which would destroy memory. [1] There's always a case to be made against the new.

Birkerts on subjective space: as this changes, so does sense of self (p. 130); hypertext diminishes the subjective self.

The internet as 'a Disneyland of information' (Birkerts)

A hypertext is supposed to allow the reader to decenter it: but Birkerts fears the resulting loss of depth, e.g., lots of information about Shakespeare's plays, but an inability to read a single play in depth (p. 138)