Lessons from the First Hypertext Digital Library, the NLS/Augment Journal System, a Hypertext Management System (HMS)

Doug Engelbart's NLS system introduced working hypertext in the early 1960s. The NLS link had a syntax similar to today's HTTP uniform resource locators (URLs). NLS links pointed to specific files in specific directories on specific machines. This created a loose hyperbase, that is, an unmanaged collection of linked documents. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Engelbart's team at Stanford Research Institute added a formal hypertext digital library, the Journal system. The Journal system added a management layer to the hyperbase. The Journal system used a new approach to locating documents. Instead of asking for a document by location, you asked for it by accession number. The Journal system managed the physical retrieval from disk or archive tape. This paper discusses the Journal system and suggests how its managed approach to retrieval can be extended to provide richer tools for document access. In this expanded approach, access will be made through a hyperbase management system (HMS), which will not only hide the document's location but will also provide new search tools and new types of links among managed documents described in the HMS's document information base (DIB). This approach would require a new type of URL, the managed URL.