Do you appreciate footnotes or do they annoy you?
I took them out of my Regency romance because half a dozen people complained in the UK while others in the US said that it was interesting to pick up historical facts on the way.
One of my footnotes explained the origin of the Burlington Arcade, for example.
I once read a book of short ghost stories that had a page before each story started explaining the real events the idea had come from. It was called The Ghost Now Standing On Platform Nine and is still one of my favourites.
Personally I like to know little details that aid my image of what is going on but footnotes are disruptive. Could you not put all the information together at the back of the book to explain your influences. Patrick Gayle did this at the end of Notes From An Exhibition. It really made the book for me as the story behind his story was quite touching.