Media Integration Issues within Open Hypermedia Systems

Multimedia facilities are now becoming common-place on desk top PC systems. In order for such facilities to be of use to users it is important that software seamlessly integrates the different media types. Hypermedia is a technology that can enable users to browse through a corpus of multimedia information, and to make and follow links within this information. At the University of Southampton we have developed an open hypermedia system known as Microcosm, which provides a link service across a range of applications and media types. This paper describes the facilities available when dealing with textual information within Microcosm, and then examines the key issues which limit the extent to which these facilities may be extended to all media types.