Book Reviews

Effective Databases for Text & Document Management

Effective databases for text & document management. Shirley A. Becker, ed. Hershey, PA: IRM Press, 2003. 371 pp. ISBN 1-931777-47-0 (paperback). $59.95.

The growing emphasis on digital libraries and the continued growth of other sources of web-based full-text documents has created a need for the creation and development of database systems that are capable of handling a diverse range of queries encompassing the full-text of the document sets being searched.

Effective databases for text & document management, edited by Shirley A. Becker, is a compilation of solicited papers from an international group of authors presenting current research in the field of information extraction and retrieval systems. Short bios of the editor and contributors are presented at the end of the volume. In the Preface, the editor provides a brief overview of each chapter.

The book is divided into four sections. Section 1, "Information extraction and retrieval in web-based systems," focuses on effective technologies for the efficient extraction and retrieval of information from the Web and includes, among others, chapters on extracting information from XML documents, examples of information extraction in real-world business applications, and creating a semi-automatic multi-language thesaurus to support searching for documents across a variety languages simultaneously. Section 2, "Data management and web technologies," provides a look at some of the issues involved in the management of web-based databases such as dealing with the transient nature of Web documents which results in broken links; optimizing data integrity using XML; and the integration of heterogeneous data sets. Section 3, "Advances in database supporting technologies," includes chapters on indexing images, a study and classification of object-relational queries, selecting support tools for reengineering and automating business applications, along with several other chapters. Section 4, "Advances in relational database theory, methods and practices," presents several chapters dealing with research in the creation, application and development of relational databases.

Effective databases for text & document management is a well laid out text presenting a wide variety of current research dealing with the creation and maintenance of databases for use on the web. The volume is geared toward professional web-based database developers, as it presents highly specialized and technical information that is both theoretical and practical in scope. It is valuable reading for organizations and individuals involved with creating knowledge-management databases for use on the web. Academic libraries, especially those developing digital collections or with programs in Computer Science, should find this book particular relevant.