Richard P. Smiraglia shares his personal evolution from early studies in music, to music cataloging, instantiation theory, and knowledge organization. People who have impacted his career and research direction are featured, as well as his work editing such publications as Library Resources & Technical Services, The Soldier Creek Music Series, and his continuing editorship of the journal Knowledge Organization. His contributions to the fields of cataloging, especially music cataloging, and his research in instantiation, domain analysis, and knowledge organization serve to advance Patrick Wilson's notion of exploitative power within a connected universe of knowledge.