The interview with Tim Berners-Lee at BBC news this morning includes reference to the work of Vannevar Bush.
…the idea of hypertext and links had actually been invented some time ago. In fact it was 1945, I think. Vannevar Bush wrote a great paper about how it could be done. But he imagined it all being done using microfilms and electric sensors and mechanics because he didn’t have computers and he didn’t have the internet then, and then Ted Nelson invented the idea of hypertext.
The Atlantic has a 1945 article by Bush on his ideas here where he “urges that men of science should then turn to the massive task of making more accessible our bewildering store of knowledge”
Faskinatin’.