Economic constraints in hypertext

Distribution of very large commercial databases via CD‐ROM is an emerging and cost advantageous alternative to distribution of information via online telecommunications access. Hypertext organization is being touted as the appropriate data organization for effective CD‐ROM information retrieval. But the producer of a hypertext database incurs significant costs in providing these benefits because of the expense of constructing indices and linkages. Indexing and linkage information in hypertext may very well occupy more space, and a larger chunk of the update and maintenance budget than the information actually being referenced. This research investigates the cost of constructing a hypertext database and provides a straightforward approach to forecasting costs of creating and maintaining a hypertext database. Cost forecasting can determine whether organizations can internally fund a hypertext database; it can also determine whether producers can afford to bring hypertext databases or technology to market. This research demonstrates that careful analysis of the costs and benefits of hypertext organization prior to implementation is much more important than in the construction of traditional databases, and that there may be many large databases for which hypertext access cannot be justified. © 1991 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.