Terminology on demand

With all due deference to the emerging e-society and its needs, the acquisition and exchange of knowledge in a plain human-to-human way, remains highly relevant. In these Google times, when you can wash out a plenitude of information with just a few clicks, many still prefer to ask a professional terminologist for help with their terminological problems; at least in Sweden, where a terminological query service operated by TNC, the Swedish national centre for terminology, has been providing users with terminological information on demand since the 1940s. This paper gives an overview of TNC’s terminological query service and discusses the sine qua nons for its effective functioning. It also describes query processing procedures and challenges that terminologists face in their aspiration to meet users’ terminological needs.