1. A method for operating a distributed network system of internet client-server devices for resource metadata management, comprising: a distributed network system of stationary and mobile computers acting as server, client or client-server computing devices; providing a metadata representation for each of a plurality of resources, wherein said each of the resources is an entity including an item comprising a unique uniform resource identifier (URI), a person, an organization, a publication, a product, an event, or an activity; registering said each of the resource entities at one of a plurality of separate registries or at a registry component of one of a plurality of combined registry-directories, wherein said each of the registered resource entities is identified by a globally unique URI; publishing said each of the resource entities at one of a plurality of separate directories or at a directory component of one of a plurality of combined registry-directories, wherein said each of the registered and identified resource entities is specified with a location and description; receiving two or more queries by a query parser, determining, by the query parser, at least one of the two or more queries is a non-semantic query and at least one of the remaining of queries is a semantic query; forwarding, by the query parser, the at least one non-semantic query to the separate registries or to the registry components of the combined registry-directories, wherein the registries and the registry components of the registry-directories are configured to manage and publish non-semantic metadata; forwarding, by the query parser, the at least one remaining semantic query only to the separate directories or to the directory components of the combined registry-directories, wherein the directories and the directory components of the registry-directories are configured to manage and publish semantic metadata, wherein the semantic metadata is in resource description framework (RDF) or web ontology language (OWL) format; identifying a metadata record within the metadata of the one of the registries or the one of the registry components of the registry-directories for a selected resource entity of the resource entities in response to the at least non-semantic query; identifying a metadata record within the metadata of the one of the directories or the one of the directory components of the registry-directories for a selected resource entity of the resource entities in response to the remaining semantic query; searching for the at least one non-semantic query for one or more of the resource entities across at least one of the registries or the registry components of the registry-directories to at least one of the directories or the directory components of the registry-directories; searching for the at least one remaining semantic query for one or more of the resource entities across at least one of the directories or the directory components of the registry-directories to at least one of the registries or the registry components of the registry-directories; returning a message with a set of zero not-found metadata records or a plurality of one or more found metadata records where each metadata record is returned in either a registry format with the set of data fields stored for each metadata record in the registry, a directory format with the set of data fields stored for each metadata record in the directory or a combined registry-directory format with the set of data fields stored for each metadata record in the combined registry-directory as appropriate for each metadata record found respectively in either a registry, directory or combined registry-directory searched in the set of one or more registries, directories or combined registry-directories queried by the one or more non-semantic or semantic queries.