In praise of the footnote

What’s the future for the footnote? Seems a strange question to ask about such an antiquated device. But modern technology, I think, could see a renaissance for that tricky little beast lurking at the bottom of the page.

The thought has occurred because I’m currently reading one of those books (a real one, that is, a “dead tree” version) whose footnotes are all at the end, rather than on the page they relate to. Annoying, because each time you reach one you have to flick forward a couple of hundred pages. Most of the notes, it’s true, are just source citations, giving no additional information. But the odd one is a ‘proper’ footnote, containing a juicy little fact or anecdote. Can’t risk missing those, can you? So you have to look up each and every note, just in case. Or, as I’ve started doing, scanning the notes each time I start a new chapter and trying to remember which ones are proper and which I can ignore.