This is an excellent collection of contributions on advancements in the World Wide Web (WWW)--the semantic Web in particular--in the last 20 years. As a festschrift, it is highly influenced by the peers and academic offspring of the honored academic Professor Rudi Studer, a leading semantic Web researcher who has been present at significant milestones in semantic Web development for the last 20 years.

The book contains six contributions from Studer’s peers and 11 contributions from his academic offspring. A glimpse at the list of contributors promises good reading ahead. It starts with a preface by Jim Hendler, who recounts the history of the semantic Web. Even though it is short, as is usual for a preface, it provides plenty of inspiration. Hendler aptly selects major events in the journey to the semantic Web and comments concisely on recent developments promoting its adoption.

Part 1, “Colleagues and Historical Roots,” begins with a chapter by Haslhofer and Neuhold, who discuss the interoperability problem within the representation of semantics in the broader context of the major areas of computer science. Oberweis et al., colleagues of Studer, describe the realization of his research activities in other areas, such as logic and complexity management, efficient algorithms, organic computing, and business process management. Effectiveness and efficiency, two very important concepts when speaking about large and heterogeneous data on the Web, are the topics of Lockemann’s chapter. He discusses semantics from the viewpoint of a database person, commenting on the effectiveness and efficiency of ontologies in information retrieval. Next, van Harmelen et al. look at semantics from a knowledge management point of view. They “identify a relatively small number of task-types” and show that many “semantic Web applications can be described in this typology.” In fact, they show that “all entries of the Semantic Web Challenges of the last three years can be classified in these task-types.” Organizational knowledge management and the application of semantic technologies for knowledge management are the main topics of the next chapter, by Davies et al. They show the use of ontologies as a form of knowledge representation in a number of real applications. Finally, Horrocks presents a range of tools and an infrastructure for supporting development and deployment ontologies, especially the Web ontology language (OWL), a topic close to many of Studer’s projects.

Part 2, “Academic Legacy,” starts with four chapters focused on Web data, text mining, Web mining, knowledge networks, and knowledge diversity on the Web. Next, four chapters move the discussion closer to software engineering, focusing on the role of semantics for Web software and services. The book closes with three chapters on interesting applications of semantic technology to knowledge management, collaboration, and industry.

The book is primarily intended for researchers in the semantic Web field. I recommend it especially for newcomers. I especially like the contribution by van Harmelen et al.; it nicely shows the application of knowledge from one field to another, and provides a useful overview of the semantic Web application principles through the defined task types.

Overall, the contributions are all connected by the semantic Web field--or, in other words, by the work of Professor Studer. However, given the range of his work, the book extends to most topics in the field and discusses related topics as well. As a result, each contribution has something to offer, even to experts.