1 The Semantic Web, Universalist Ambition and Some Lessons from Librarianship

Building the semantic web encounters problems similar to building large bibliographic systems. The experience of librarianship in controlling large, heterogeneous collections of bibliographic data suggests that the real obstacles facing a semantic web will be logical and textual, not mechanical. Three issues are explored in this essay: development of a standard container of information, desirability of standardizing the information hosted by this standardized container, and auxiliary tools to aid users find information. Value spaces are suggested as a solution. A Vision of Shared Meaning Increasing the intelligibility of the Web is a compelling vision. Imagine how the utility of local data could be enhanced if they were meaningfully linked to data posted by strangers fa r away. The Web could evolve into a comprehensive meaning system, a universal encyclopedia or “world brain, ” as prophesized by H.G. Wells (1938). Clever programs could roam this meaning space discovering useful, unanticipated information, emulating Bachman’s (1973) vision of database programmers navigating an n-dimensional database space. The extensible markup language (XML) and its attendant technologies is the fundamenta