  Since the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) specification and its
SKOS eXtension for Labels (SKOS-XL) became formal W3C recommendations in 2009 a
significant number of conventional knowledge organization systems (KOS)
(including thesauri, classification schemes, name authorities, and lists of
codes and terms, produced before the arrival of the ontology-wave) have made
their journeys to join the Semantic Web mainstream. This paper uses "LOD KOS"
as an umbrella term to refer to all of the value vocabularies and lightweight
ontologies within the Semantic Web framework. The paper provides an overview of
what the LOD KOS movement has brought to various communities and users. These
are not limited to the colonies of the value vocabulary constructors and
providers, nor the catalogers and indexers who have a long history of applying
the vocabularies to their products. The LOD dataset producers and LOD service
providers, the information architects and interface designers, and researchers
in sciences and humanities, are also direct beneficiaries of LOD KOS. The paper
examines a set of the collected cases (experimental or in real applications)
and aims to find the usages of LOD KOS in order to share the practices and
ideas among communities and users. Through the viewpoints of a number of
different user groups, the functions of LOD KOS are examined from multiple
dimensions. This paper focuses on the LOD dataset producers, vocabulary
producers, and researchers (as end-users of KOS).
