The CLARIN Concept Registry

Since a few months the CLARIN Concept Registry (CCR;www.clarin.eu/conceptregistry) is operational, the open access, OpenSKOS-based registry replacing ISOcat. Although using ISOcat had been encouraged by CLARIN, it had its drawbacks: a rich data model combined with a very open update strategy turned out to be too demanding. The new concept registry is much more ‘under control’: representatives from the various countries involved in CLARIN will check every entry before it becomes visible to the general public, and the model has been made less complex. This model is now based on SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System), a W3C recommendation widely in use for concept and vocabulary services. The OpenSKOS system used by the CCR is used by various Dutch cultural heritage institutes, e.g., Sound & Vision. They and CLARIN joined forces to develop the next version of the system.