This book introduces a new approach to designing E-Librarian Services. With the help of this system, users will be able to retrieve multimedia resources from digital libraries more efficiently than they would by browsing through an index or by using a simple keyword search. E-Librarian Services combine recent advances in multimedia information retrieval with aspects of human-machine interfaces, such as the ability to ask questions in natural language; they simulate a human librarian by finding and delivering the most relevant documents that offer users potential answers to their queries. The premise is that more pertinent results can be retrieved if the search engine understands the meaning of the query; the returned results are therefore logical consequences of an inference rather than of keyword matches. Moreover, E-Librarian Services always provide users with a solution, even in situations where they are unable to offer a comprehensive answer.

Complete overview of several related and current research topics in computer-science, e.g., Semantic Web technologies, natural language processing, and information retrieval) Provides a solution for current problems in digital libraries; how to retrieve in a reliable and user friendly way, pertinent documents from a multimedia knowledge base Complex subjects like Information Retrieval, Semantic Technologies, or Descriptive Logics are surveyed and explained in a pedagogical way with multiple examples and illustrations Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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