Plugin to hold file information in a database

I'm hoping to catalogue my uploaded files by writing additional information (EXIF, GPS, meta information etc.) to a database.

Been programming regular PHP for years but never done OO and I must say the CKFinder source scares me somewhat.

Thinking a plug-in would be the appropriate approach. I'm comfortable with everything relating to interrogating the files and writing the data. Just after some hints in respect of methods/hooks that will be useful to me. Particular in reference to ensuring that changes to files (name, path) are correctly recorded and that integrity is maintained between the file structure and the db.

Thanks.