Semantic Network Service (SNS) Update and Future Vision

Abstract

Semantic Network Service (SNS) provides shared terminology access and indexing services for environmental and geospatial information systems since five years (http://www.semantic-network.de). Having started closely related to the German Environmental Information Network (GEIN), SNS has emerged as a trusted reference for many systems, such as the German Environmental Information Portal (PortalU), the German Spatial Data Infrastructure (GeoPortal.Bund) on the federal level, and others on the state level. From applying the librarian approach of subject indexing to the Web, the focus has moved towards a more intuitive full text search assistance, and is currently shifting to semantic data integration.