design

New literacy - new book styles - what about the index?

newbook
On WebInkNow, David Meerman Scott and Zak Nelson talk about making books more like web pages. I can see some cases where this model might work, but when I read Information Anxiety by R. S. Wurman, the design of that book, much like Nelson's idea shown above, drove me into a state of information anxiety. I must be rather linear. This much material on a page would interrupt the flow of long reading. It could have its place in guidebooks, and short content with many field-like features. Where could the index play a role? As a generator of cross references and related materials, perhaps.