1. A computer-implemented method of providing access to information stored in diverse formats, the method comprising: receiving from an application a semantic request having a request name that semantically identifies a type of information sought by the request, the semantic request comprising a uniform resource identifier; converting, at a semantic object provider, the received semantic request to a generic request having corresponding request parameters, the semantic object provider comprising a semantic object class defining an application programming interface to create an object, a semantic object implementation class to provide persistency to information related to a class, and an object registry to interact with a class implemented by a repository; initiating, by the semantic object provider, a creation of the object for receiving and converting the semantic request; opening a database connection within a data access system corresponding to the semantic request; requesting properties of data corresponding to the semantic request, if a database connection has not previously been opened; transmitting the converted request to the a data access system; receiving data from the data access system corresponding to the converted request; and providing the data to the application.