Auld Linky

Auld Linky is a storage and retrieval engine in which information about relationships between digital entities is stored in a structured manner, using a data model derived from Open Hypermedia research. This coupled with the notion of querying in context leads to a service that provides relevant information to applications and experiences.

Auld Linky draws on the research and experience of the Open Hypermedia community using its notions of linking and structuring of relations between information. Specifically it uses the Fundamental Open Hypermedia Model (FOHM) to structure associations between objects. Objects can be information resources (such as webpages, documents, multimedia annotations) or they can be physical objects (such as artifacts, locations), using a suitable naming scheme. Infact, the data model is agnostic to the types of objects it refers to and since the FOHM relations are first class, complex structured can be constructed. For example, an annotation could be captured that talks about a visitor's trail around a museum exhibit in which a number of physical artefacts and information resources.

Queries in Auld Linky are formulated by building relations articulating the structure of the expected results, in the same way that sorted structures are constructed. Infact, there is no difference between a query structure and pure information structure, and query structures can be stored in the same way as any structure is. Auld Linky contains a graph matching algorithm that matches structures together. In addition the notion of context can be attached to structures and provided alongside a query. During the matching processes context is also matched and a culling processes removes unwanted structure. For example, an application may query for information relating to a car, using either a child's or an adult's context. The concept of a car could be authored with a number of different information sources applicable to various contexts. Auld Linky would perform the query and apply the restrictive context to return appropriate information to the application.

The source code for the Auld Linky server, also containing Java and Perl APIs, may be found here. A pre-compiled Windows binary for the Auld Linky server may be downloaded here.