Adding Contextual Citations to the Internet Archive

Upgrading Print Archives

What would it take to add contextual citations to the Internet Archive’s print archives?

Citing Document @ The Internet Archive

Take for example a quote from Political Economy (1883)

“Omitting the capital which a joint-stock company puts into a bank, the banker possesses no capital, except his premises ..”

Note the footnote: “Practical Political Economy, 1877, p 452.  (actually page 451 in this edition)

 

Quoted Source

.. which quotes from “Chapters on Practical Political Economy; being the Substance of Lectures delivered in the University of Oxford” (1878):

See quote is drawn from the bottom of page 451

 

Implementation:

Could archive.org use machine learning to:

1. locate the footnotes
2. lookup the source material
3. display the cited material next to the cited page?

Possible User Interface:

Imagine if the footnote were a hyperlink to the print source, of which the internet archive also has.

Inspired by Ted Nelson

Could we make an interface for archive.org’s print items that draws from Ted Nelson‘s ideas?