The queries are the mechanism by the end user (human or cybernetic) access to the knowledge and the resources.
Three types of queries are proposed:
(Note: now that I think it, this division can only has sense at level of user interface and that can be codified internally with the same mechanism... perhaps SQL? It is probable)
search of bibliographical description patterns;
taxonomic navigation (what name so grandiloquent, I hope not to have put the shrimp).
bibliographical ontology (take that, grep).
The search of patterns is a classic search. If it is necessary we tried to make one description more formal. The user interface could be like QBE.
I believe that Taxonomic navigation is the most powerful tool. I have not verified if sites as Yahoo uses it but are ideal.
Of what it consists? Easy. The bibliographical descriptions are done on the basis of a scheme. That scheme has a predetermined syntax and contents. If we ordered a set of descriptions based on a determined order of the fields that comprise of the scheme, we obtain a hierarchy. The ideal is that the order of the hierarchy adapts to each consultation based on the user. Thus, a consultation could begin ordering descriptions of mammals by terrestrial/amphibian/marine/o flyers and make that the following hierarchy is based on another field as could be... damn, I do not remember how the mammals are classified.
The question is that another query can have a different order.
In each query the user is navegating more deeply refining the query.
So for this refinement has more feeling, in each increase of the depth it can add restrictions in the sense of fields that match or not certain properties.
The query finally must have the possibility of being saved, in order to reuse it at another moment (like a view to the warehouse of descriptions).
As it is of supposing, throughout navigation they are appearing references to the descriptions that match the conditions of the search. Finally the descriptions will take us to the resource. Like Freshmeat, but done well.
I know that this is a hell of incongruencias, but for that we are, to clean, to fix and to give splendor.