Establishing a Multi-Thesauri-Scenario based on SKOS and Cross-Concordances

With the standardization of SKOS 1 (Simple Knowledge Organization System) in August 2009 a data model has been offered to publish controlled vocabularies and taxonomies on the web in a technical and semantically interoperable way. The heterogeneous environment of various vocabularies worldwide can be technically harmonized prospectively and especially the content of traditional databases can be made accessible and connectable for applications of the Semantic Web, i.e. as Linked Open Data 2 . Vocabularies in SKOS format and respectively crosswalks between them can play a relevant role in this context, because they can serve as a bridging hub for the inter-linking of different published and indexed data sets.