Here's some great news that caught me by surprise.

The innovative folks at The Institute for the Future of the Book have pledged to release their paragraph-level commenting system as a WordPress plugin next month. And here I'd been thinking that general use of such a system was a pipe dream. It just goes to show.

Commentpress is the name that the Institute has given to the commenting system I described last month at the release of the fourth demonstration project using this technology, the President's January 10 Address to the Nation. The use of Commentpress with The Iraq Study Group Report was greeted with oohs and aahs by readers of this blog, and I'm enthusing right along with you.

This plugin will offer a new way of annotating, commenting on and discussing all kinds of texts and documents on campus - in the classroom, in administrative offices and in the library. As just one example, our Dean recently released a draft of the Libraries' goals for the next few years, and has asked that we send him our comments via e-mail. I'd much rather have the option to use Commentpress, not only for the convenience, but also because I'm interested to see what my colleagues have to say. The process would be so much more conversational and open.

Combining the features of Commentpress with wiki-like editing and version control would be another way to use this type of system. I can see why editing capabilities would be useful in some situations and not in others. Who knows: maybe someday we'll have a choice. In the meantime, we're off to a great start.