Vocabularies aim at describing data from (potentially very) specific domains. Therefore, it is only normal that only a small portion of app use cases are covered by the few vocabularies we listed as well-known vocabularies. However, for the sake of interoperability, creating new vocabularies each time you create a new app is also a bad idea: if someone already did the work, you don’t want to re-invent the wheel, right?

So if the vocabulary of your dreams is out there somewhere on the web, how to find it? Hopefully, there exists some resources to support you.

Ontology catalogues

Linked Open Vocabularies

  • IRI: https://lov.linkeddata.es/
  • Description: You knew the Linked Open Data? Get ready for the Linked Open Vocabularies! It’s (at the time of writing) the big player in the world of ontology catalogues. The LOV references vocabularies meeting certain quality standards, and offers some search functionalities. For more information, you can refer to this paper, published by the LOV creators.

An overview of the LOV vocabularies

Other catalogues

  • http://lov4iot.appspot.com/?p=ontologies (specific to IoT ontologies)
  • http://vocab.org/
  • http://ontologi.es/

Semantic Web search engines

  • http://www.vocab.cc/

If you did not find what you were looking for, it is time to create your own vocabulary