Happy Easter 2010
Guess this is a pretty special Easter holiday this year; at least for me …
Two months ago I’ve published as a book my PhD Thesis on usability of information discovery in Semantic Digital Libraries; few days ago I received my copy of the hardcover version.
This is also the iPad weekend, and my book is also published in the ePUB format, which makes it iPad-ready.
There also other things on the horizon, of which I will let you know pretty soon…
Therefore, I would like to wish you all a very Happy Easter.
(Psst, there is 25% discount on my recent book as an Easter gift)
New book on Semantic Digital Libraries
Probably you heard by now, but if you didn’t – here is the big news: I have published a second book on Semantic Digital Libraries: Improving Usability of Information Discovery with Semantic and Social Services.
Compared to the previous one, it is not a compilation of articles contributed by myself and my colleagues; this book is based on my thesis. The book covers most important aspects of what Semantic Digital Libraries are and what is that they can offer. I present a very thorough review of literature describing various advanced digital library projects and components. Based on the identified requirements I propose architecture, data model and classification of ontologies for semantic digital libraries. I describe two example information retrieval and knowledge management techniques, which utilize semantic web and social networking technologies. Finally, I briefly describe the JeromeDL system and provide very detailed and thorough analyses of evaluation comparing usability of end-user services offered by a semantic digital library with those offered by a classic digital library.
The book is available for purchase at lulu.com.
Since I understand that not everyone could afford buying a complete, hardcover version, I have prepared an array of different versions (see below) of this book, ranging from Hardcover through Paperback through E-Book. There is also a lite version of this book, which does not contain the attachments.
| Hardcover | Paperback | E-Book | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full version | ISBN: 978-1-4452-7770-7 €50 |
ISBN: 978-1-4452-8243-5 €30 |
PDF €15 |
| Lite version* | ISBN: 978-1-4452-8864-2 €40 |
Lite Paperback version €20 |
ePUB** €15
Amazon Kindle $14.99+Taxes  |
* NOTE: Lite version does not contain appendix
** Open standard format, compatible with, e.g., iPad DRM-enabled, compatible with Adobe Digital Editions
I hope your will find this book a good read and very helpful for your studies and work.
(Pssst, come and visit our Facebook group tomorrow: you will learn how to get the book cheaper over the next couple of days)
New “home” for Semantic Digital Libraries
January was madness: I was hoping for this year to be more relaxed after all the rush with thesis and the company in 2009. But it did not start like one; guess I should blame my workholic attitude. Maybe I should do what my supervisor once did: hang a note (so I can see it) saying “Just say NO”.
I have been asked many times recently about materials regarding Semantic Digital Libraries but could not really point to just one location. Yes, there are all my papers at http://library.deri.ie (which happens to be down quite often ever since I left the institute), and many of my presentations are on slideshare, and than there is my book, and my thesis, and my tutorials … I realized that there has to be (finally) a place where I can gather and reference all of that.
And here it is: http://semdl.info/. At the moment you will find there all major presentations I did related to the topic, archive information about tutorials we gave (together with complete slides from most of them), and references to two of my books on Semantic Digital Libraries. Most likely I will use our infrastructure to set up a JeromeDL with all the papers on the subject and reference them there.
But, it’s not the end: I do not want it to be a one-man show. I hope that all other people that are interested in the subject will help me to fill in the site with more materials and make it alive (someone already suggested a blog 
). Please let me know if you want to join the effort.
