The competition on Internet between classification of resources and access provided by search engines is seemingly being won by the latter. It might be an instance of an ancient antagonism between knowledge organization techniques resting on purely formal criteria, e.g. alphabetical ordering, and another one which relies only on conceptual categories, viz. systematic arrangement. While culturally disparaged, alphabetical ordering eventually prevails upon systematic arrangement for motives of convenience. The loss of sense that this practice causes is universally deplored by specialists.
