Cataloging the Internet

[The Big Glee Bopper]

On Mon, 16 Oct 1995, Paul Neff, Internet Librarian wrote:

> >Uh huh, kindly let us know when the staff of Kansas City Public Library have
> >finished cataloging, classifying, and indexing the Internet :-)
> 
> OK, just as soon as you let us know when you've finished cataloging, 
> classifying and indexing all the books in the world.  If there's a fundamental
> difference between these two tasks then I'd be interested in knowing about it.

So what is the difference? Can you catalog a moving target or do you have 
to pattern recognize it? Wouldn't it be more reasonable to imagine an 
uncataloged internet which includes cataloged resources such as libraries?

One of the advantages of libraries is not that they include everything 
but that they exclude most things. The internet on the other hand seems 
to include everything.

--Thom