Links to the Future
Harald Krottmaier · 2003
Abstract. This article is about an upcoming feature in the Journal of Universal Computer Science ([J.UCS, 2002]) related on typed-links. We will introduce the concept of “Links to the Future ” in context of the journal. Articles published in J.UCS are stored in an object-oriented database. Therefore features such as fulltextand index-search are already available out-of-the-box. With the concept of “Links to the Future ” it is possible to automatically generate a link to an already published article in J.UCS. Utilizing the paradigm of bidirectional links will help the reader to use this additional information about an article. It will be shown that this concept is limited to articles stored in the local database. However, a simple extension (i.e. working with so called surrogate-objects) will make it possible to enhance this idea to resources referenced in articles published in J.UCS. References to traditional resources (books and other printed material) are also analyzed. In the electronic environment several techniques (such as DOI, Digital Object Identifier) are available to refer to an unique electronic resource. Using surrogates of traditional material makes it possible to link to traditional material. Identification systems for traditional material (ISBN and ISSN) are already available and digital libraries should make use of them. To enable this feature it is necessary to add attributes to link-objects. Problems related to this upcoming feature are discussed. This article will give an outline and status report of the implementation work.