Semantic Web Field Guide Thomas B. Passin June 2003, Softbound, 300 pages ISBN Our price: $44.95 You can order this book from your bookstore by using the ISBN and title listed above.

A complex series of extensions to the World Wide Web, the Semantic Web¹s purpose is to make data and services far more accessible to computers and far more useful for people than the Web we know today. Written for developers and programmers, this guide seeks to acquaint these users with the basic technologies and their interrelations that will be likely to play key roles in the Semantic Web.

Covered are key technology areas such as knowledge modeling (RDF, Topic Maps), agents (DAML, FIPA), and Trust and Authentication. A basic, conceptual approach is taken so that developers and programmers with a wide range of backgrounds and interests come to understand the essential nature of these areas, how they work, and something about some specific technologies that are being used or proposed. Important points are illustrated with diagrams and code fragments to help develop a familiarity with these Semantic Web initiatives.

Thomas Passin is Principal Systems Engineer at Mitretek Systems, a non-profit systems and information engineering firm in Falls Church, Virginia. He has been involved with data modeling for many years, and with XML-related subjects since 1998. This combination of interests led him to study flexible modeling of knowledge on the World Wide Web, especially topic maps and RDF. Thomas Passin has published a number of conference papers and journal articles on XML and topic map-related subjects. He lives in Reston, Virginia.