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The book of Guojun Lu is a compendium of the state of art multimedia database management. The reader gets an overview on relevant methods of storage and retrieval of multimedia data types in databases and learns how to improve data storage and retrieval performance. The author is a senior lecturer at the Gippsland School of Computing and Information Technology at Monash University in Churchill, Australia. This background leads obviously to the special strength of the book: Its systematic style and a well kept balance between overview and depth and theoretical foundation and application examples. Each chapter ends with a list of problems which highlight the most important issues of the chapter. Furthermore, each chapter has a reference list. However, the number of references from the last years is a bit small. The contents of the book: Chapter 1: Introduction with the important definitions and an explanation of the needs for multimedia indexing and retrieval, an overview on multimedia indexing and retrieval and capabilities of the relevant systems. Chapter 2: Multimedia data types and formats: The main formats for text, vector graphics and animation, audio, digital images and digital video; Standards for composite multimedia documents; Major characteristics and requirements of multimedia data and applications. Chapter 3: Multimedia design issues: Data models, among others a general multimedia model; User interface design issues, feature extraction, indexing and similarity measure, QoS guarantees in clients, servers, and communication systems are introduced. Chapter 4: Text document indexing and retrieval: Differences between information retrieval systems and database systems; Automatic text document indexing and boolean retrieval model; Vector space, probabilistic, and cluster-based retrieval models; Performance issues; WWW search engines. Chapter 5: Indexing and retrieval of audio: Main audio properties and features; Audio classification; Speech recognition and retrieval; Music indexing and retrieval; Using relationships. Chapter 6: Image indexing and retrieval: Different approaches to image indexing and retrieval, a.o. text based, color based, based on shape, texture, compressed image data; Integrated image indexing and retrieval techniques; Appendix: Color representations. Chapter 7: Video indexing and retrieval: Shot based video indexing and retrieval; Video indexing and retrieval; Effective video representation and abstraction. Chapter 8: Intergrated multimedia indexing and retrieval: General architecture, user interface; Example systems. Chapter 9: Techniques and data structures for efficient multimedia similarity search: Filtering; Clustering; B+, B trees, multidimensional B+ trees, \(k\)-\(d\) trees; Grid files; TV tree. Chapter 10: System support for distributed multimedia databases: QoS management; Design goals; Data storage devices and management, requirements; Multimedia computer architectures; Multimedia operating systems; Multimedia networks; Multimedia transport protocols; Archiving overall synchronous presentation. Chapter 11: Measurement of multimedia information retrieval effectiveness. Chapter 12: Products, applications, and new developments: a.o. video on demand, multimedia security. The book is especially recommended as a solid textbook for students of informatics with interests in multimedia databases. Furthermore, it is also recommended to students and practioners who want to get a fundamental background for development of efficient multimedia database applications. A reader without a database or software engineering knowledge will need some time to understand the contents of the book.