Alexandra Horowitz on NYT:

“…The footnote jousting could soon be moot, as the e-book may inadvertently be driving footnotes to extinction. The e-book hasn’t killed the book; instead, it’s killing the “page.” Today’s e-readers scroll text continuously, eliminating the single preformed page, along with any text defined by being on its bottom

…All this is discouraging for a champion of footnotes like myself. The footnotes are among the first things I look at when I pull a book from a store shelf. My editor gamely tolerated my inclusion of many in my own book (though we removed more than we left in). I would be proud to be a footnote in someone else’s work.”

Maybe a problem for human sciences, nonfiction writing, legal writing, fiction à la Foster Wallace. Maybe not. We’ll just have to get accustomed to new writing/publishing/reading frameworks. Once the eye used to slide down the bottom of the page in search of more informations. Now the finger presses on links.