Finding the Concept, Not Just the Word: A librarian's guide to ontologies and semantics

by Brandy E. King, Kathy Reinold

Aimed at students and professionals within Library and Information Services (LIS), this book is about the power and potential of ontologies to enhance the electronic search process. The book will compare search strategies and results in the current search environment and demonstrate how these could be transformed using ontologies and concept searching. Simple descriptions, visual representations, and examples of ontologies will bring a full understanding of how these concept maps are constructed to enhance retrieval through natural language queries. Readers will gain a sense of how ontologies are currently being used and how they could be applied in the future, encouraging them to think about how their own work and their users' search experiences could be enhanced by the creation of a customized ontology.

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hi

[Julie Whelan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intended as a textbook, this book will also be a good read and reference for those who want to explore the "semantic" side of the web. Brandy King writes with clarity and a style that makes technical matter easy to digest. Examples abound and the later part of the book is devoted to case studies ranging from the realm of drug discovery to tracking terrorists. Topics range from building an ontology and natural language processing to the languages used to express ontologies (XML,RDF,OWL,SKOS)Highly recommended.