Jim Regan -- Site Reviews
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is,
"... a wholly remarkable book... In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words Don't Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover."
Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
"The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" started its various lives in 1978 as a radio series, has since appeared in print, album and television forms, as a computer game, and is presently in the limbo of Hollywood 'production' for a theoretical 2002 release date. And yet, in all its manifestations, the Guide itself has been an important, but secondary, player in a larger story - strictly a narrative device. Until now. Now the genuine h2g2 - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (or at least the Earth edition of that fine publication) is available on the Web, and positions for researchers are available.
Launched in April of 99, h2g2 set out to turn science fiction into fact, by turning Ford Prefect's hand-held encyclopedia into 'the real thing' - an eclectic guide with entries compiled by volunteer researchers from around the planet, and available to anyone with an Internet connection. (Genuine hand-held access is also being developed, as the On the Move section of the site explains.) The response to the site's launch included 30,000 page hits -- which overwhelmed h2g2's server -- minutes into the launch, and the registration of over 3000 researchers within the first 24 hours.
Use of the Guide is simplicity itself. Entries are divided into three categories - Life, The Universe, and Everything. Life covers such subjects as Humour, Current Affairs and Music. The Universe deals with our little corner of it, and Everything includes, everything else - History, Languages, Holidays, etc.
Naturally, there's also a keyword search, though users of this method are likely to become very familiar with the phrase, "No Results found." It's still early days at h2g2, and there are many more omissions than inclusions. In fact, for any sort of serious research, there are better places for both comprehensive information and accurate information - but the attraction of the Guide has more to do with its nature than its scope.
For example, the Encyclopedia Britannica is not likely to have an entry about, "How to Open a Trendy Bar," ("Think of a name, then misspell it, then add a random number. This will be the name of your bar") nor a piece "In Defence of Pyjamas." The approach researchers take in writing their entries also exhibits a good deal more variety than the average encyclopedia - while profiles of "P.G. Wodehouse" and "The Goon Show" are fairly objective works, an article about "I.D. Badges" holds a definite opinion on its subject.
Meanwhile, although the words "Don't Panic" aren't inscribed in large friendly letters anywhere on the site, they do appear in a row of buttons at the top and bottom of each page - and lead to an exhaustive FAQ list. The Registration button is also in this row, and for any visitors who might want to set up an h2g2 Personal Home Page, or join the researchers and contribute to the Guide, registration is necessary.
The entire project is an interesting case of life imitating art - with a two-decade time delay. Yet as closely as an e-book or Internet-ready Palm Pilot may fit the functional description of the original Guide, and as much as the Internet seems a technology made for allowing reality to meet, and even surpass its fictional inspiration (Ford Prefect's copy wasn't capable of instant updates), Adams doesn't see himself as having performed any Jules Verne-style prophecies - "When I originally described The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...I was only joking."
Still, regardless of the original intent, or what h2g2 might eventually become, there is one certainty. Even in its current, limited form, this edition of the Hitch hiker's Guide far surpasses the original's last known entry about Earth, which stated , in its entirety, "Mostly harmless."
h2g2 - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy can be found at http://www.h2g2.com/.