The intended audience for this introduction to and overview of case-based reasoning (CBR) includes students and software professionals. The book is specifically intended to be accessible to an audience with no expertise in artificial intelligence or other areas related to CBR.

The book emphasizes case studies that establish the kinds of areas in which CBR has been used successfully. The case studies show that CBR is increasingly being used in the real world. The author also uses them to demonstrate the areas in which he feels CBR is most useful, and the ways in which he believes CBR can be more beneficial than other approaches, such as rule-based expert systems.

Chapter 1 briefly introduces the concepts behind CBR. It also argues that CBR can be a better approach than rule-based expert systems in domains where it is difficult to elicit the rules needed to implement a rule base.

Chapter 2 gives a brief history of CBR, beginning in the 1970s. It also discusses the most common techniques used in implementing CBR systems.

Chapter 3 offers a classification scheme for CBR systems. The author divides them into two basic areas, classification-related and synthesis-related. He sees classification tasks as naturally suited to CBR, while indicating that synthesis tasks remain more of a research area for CBR. He compares CBR with several other techniques: information retrieval, statistical analysis, rule-based expert systems, neural nets, and machine learning. Some of the best-known demonstration CBR projects are described.

Chapter 4 describes some commercial applications of CBR. Watson suggests that its primary commercial use is in customer service centers. Chapter 5 then focuses on the use of CBR in customer service centers.

Chapter 6 describes some software tools for developing CBR systems. Chapter 7 then walks through the process of beginning to set up a case base using one of the software tools. The author notes that it is probably necessary to involve professional developers at least in the initial states of establishing a CBR system.

Chapter 8 discusses the general approach needed for building, testing, and maintaining case bases. It also discusses the factors that produce a high-quality case base.

Chapter 9 concludes with an overview. The author foresees a strong future for CBR in domains where retrieval is required, but not where adaptation problems are involved.

The book is clearly written and well edited. It gives a good, high-level overview of the field, along with a bibliography for those who need more technical details. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a good introduction, but not to professional software developers, who would probably find it too superficial.