Hypermedia — a new concept for information management

Many powerful tools are available for data storage and retrieval. However, there is an increasing need to retrieve information without explicitly formulating a query, which is not supported by classical data bases. Hypermedia provides flexible tools to interconnect related data and allows thus to browse through them according to various points of views. Building up a hypermedia system today needs elaborate work of the domain specialist. On the other hand it is a relatively simple task to add further data to an existing system if it is designed appropriately. Hypermedia allows a non-linear organization of various types of information units including alphanumeric and graphical data, sound, video or computer programs. This Tutorial will present the basic principles both from the users and from the developers point of view.