It is dangerous to predict the future but I feel safe in stating that the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) will become vital tools in developing innovative nursing and midwifery practice through research. One might respond that with some notable exceptions there is little evidence of this at present. Relatively few practitioners have easy access to Internet resources and the most visible representations of the WWW are in medicine and the sciences!. However this article argues that the WWW is not only a more economic way to disseminate information than the traditional printed text but that it has a particular ‘fit’ with nursing as a discipline. Hypertext is central to the power of the WWW and I suggest that it will transform the way we define ‘knowledge’ and redefine barriers such as the well known research-practice gap (see
Nursing Standard. 11, 11, 1-2. doi: 10.7748/ns1996.12.11.11.1.c2431
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