Introduction:

The quality of a scientific work of authorship can be by the proper terminological use, therefore, developing for the origin and meaning of the studies in the context of correct use.

Objective:

In this context, the objective of the article was to obtain a better terminological clarification of the concept “Ontology Spectrum”.

Methodology:

The methodological procedures included identifying the keywords, conducting research in scientific databases in search of collections, collecting scientific production containing the keywords and examining the publications to understand the contribution of each to the topic under analysis.

Results:

353 documents were collected. Citations, authorship and definitions of the concept/ term were investigated, under the lens of the multidisciplinarity intrinsic to the theme.

Conclusion:

As the “Spectrum of Ontologies” was established in Computer Science (CS) with a view to analyzing the potentialities of the instruments of the Knowledge Organization, it was concluded that in the Library and Information Science, the term is equivalent to “Knowledge Organization System” and focuses on the quality of the content, while in the CS, the focus is on formal structure. Thus, the Ontology Spectrum explains the multidisciplinary aspects involved in the Information Retrieval process.