The cultural sector & the semantic web... did you know those two are close friends?  It’s not immediately what you might expect, but the Semantic Web sure is a hot topic in the cultural sector in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Last week’s seminar on The Digital Future of Cultural Heritage had to limit their registration up to 100 participants. We know that ‘semantic’ is the buzz-word wherever you go, but the large attendance in this specific sector made me wonder what is linking them. Why is the cultural sector interested in semantic web technologies?

Our Semantic Technology Lab developed a practical tool to browse a taxonomy using the SKOS model. Browsing the RDF data behind the model makes them tangible.

SKOS is a recommendation by W3C to support the use of classification systems like thesauri, taxonomies and subject heading lists in a semantic implementation. In fact it provides a standard way to represent knowledge organization systems using the Resource Description Framework (RDF).