A new interesting book on Knowledge Technologies from Nick Milton is available online. It is meant to be read also by novices so it’s deliberately not too technical or complex. I had a quick look at it this morning, and I think that it is interesting even for who’s already familiar with all this stuff, cause it gives a nice overall perspective on the field. Never too fanatic about the ‘semantic’ promises, sober and realistic when describing the features and advantages of these technologies.

The first excerpt is about the ‘ever-changing meaning of ontology’. The second one instead is a graph depicting the role of ontologies in semantic systems.

And the good news is: you can get a pdf pre-print for free!

Abstract
Several technologies are emerging that provide new ways to capture, store, present and use knowledge. This book is the first to provide a comprehensive introduction to five of the most important of these technologies: Knowledge Engineering, Knowledge Based Engineering, Knowledge Webs, Ontologies and Semantic Webs. For each of these, answers are given to a number of key questions (What is it? How does it operate? How is a system developed? What can it be used for? What tools are available? What are the main issues?). The book is aimed at students, researchers and practitioners interested in Knowledge Management, Artificial Intelligence, Design Engineering and Web Technologies.

During the 1990s, Nick worked at the University of Nottingham on the application of AI techniques to knowledge management and on various knowledge acquisition projects to develop expert systems for military applications. In 1999, he joined Epistemics where he worked on numerous knowledge projects and helped establish knowledge management programmes at large organisations in the engineering, technology and legal sectors. He is author of the book “Knowledge Acquisition in Practice”, which describes a step-by-step procedure for acquiring and implementing expertise. He maintains strong links with leading research organisations working on knowledge technologies, such as knowledge-based engineering, ontologies and semantic technologies.