Web Dragons

In the eye-blink that has been transformed into the utterly transformed. Pretty well, all we need to know is on the web; if not today, then tomorrow. It's where we learn, play and play with new friends. What do you need to know? Search engines.

Search engines - "web dragons" - are the portals through which we access society's treasure trove of information. How do they stack up against librarians, the gatekeepers over centuries past? What roles will libraries play in a world that is ruled by the web? How is the web organized? Who controls its contents, and how do they do it? How do search engines work? How can web visibility be exploited by those who want to sell us your wares? What's coming tomorrow, and can we influence it? We are changing the dawn of a new era, starting right now.

Do you use search engines every day? Are you a developer or a librarian, helping others with their information needs? A researcher or journalist for whom the web has changed the very way you work? An online marketer or site designer, whose career exists because of the web? Whoever you are: if you care about this book - and make you blink.

About the authors:
Ian H. Witten is a professor of computer science at the University of Waikato, where he directs the New Zealand Digital Library research project. He has published widely on digital libraries, machine learning, text compression, hypertext, speech synthesis and signal processing, and computer typography. A fellow of the ACM, he has written several books, including How to Build a Digital Library (2002) and Data Mining (2005), both from Morgan Kaufmann.

Marco Gori is professor of computer science at the University of Siena, where he leads the artificial intelligence research group. He is the Chairman of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, a fellow of the IEEE and of the ECCAI, and the President of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence.

Teresa Numerico teaches network theory and communication. University of Rome. Previously she was employed as a business and marketing manager for various media companies, including the Italian branch of the Turner Broadcasting System (CNN and Cartoon Network).

* Presents a critical view of the idea of accessing a small handful of gateways.

* Provides promising approaches for addressing the problems, such as the personalization of web services.

* Presented by authorities in the field of digital libraries, web history, machine learning, and web and data mining.

* Find more information at the author's site: webdragons.net .

PREFACE
1. SETTING THE SCENE
2. LITERATURE AND THE WEB
3. MEET THE WEB
4. HOW TO SEARCH
5. THE WEB WARS
6. WHO CONTROLS INFORMATION?
7. THE DRAGONS EVOLVE
REFERENCES
INDEX