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Network of Terms

The Network of Terms is a search engine for finding terms in terminology sources (such as thesauri, classification systems and reference lists).

Given a textual search query, the Network of Terms searches one or more terminology sources in real-time and returns matching terms, including their labels and URIs. The Network of Terms offers a simple search interface, handles errors gracefully in case a source does not respond well and harmonizes the results to the SKOS data model.

The Network of Terms is intended for collection managers that want to improve the findability of their information by assigning terms from terminology sources that are used by the institutions in the Dutch Digital Heritage Network. Information managers use the Network of Terms in their collection management system.

Schematically, the collection management system sends out a single query to the Network of Terms, which gets translated to a set of queries that is appropriate for each terminology source. The terms matching the query are harmonized to SKOS and returned to the collection management system where information managers can evaluate the results and link their data to the terms:

Find terms​

If you just want to search the Network of Terms using a web interface, have a look at our demonstrator, a web interface on top of the GraphQL API.

APIs​

  • GraphQL is the primary API for searching one or more terminology sources from a query string and retrieving harmonized SKOS results.
  • Reconciliation for matching textual strings in your data against terms, typically used from OpenRefine to clean up and link data in bulk.

Source code​

The Network of Terms is open source software, available on GitHub.

These docs cover using the Network of Terms: the GraphQL and Reconciliation APIs, the demonstrator, and the list of available terminology sources. For running, hosting or extending the software – install steps, environment variables, the catalog data model, query authoring and the test suite – see the network-of-terms repository README and the README of each package under it.