The physical and logical differences among information sources on the Internet complicate information retrieval. For instance, data is no longer just simple text or tuples, but now includes objects and multimedia. Data can also have varied and often arcane semantics. Sources have different policies, procedures, and conventions and are hosted by diverse platforms. Ontologies-models of concepts and their relationships-are a powerful way to organize query formulation and semantic reconciliation in large distributed information environments. They can capture both the structure and semantics of information environments, so an ontology-based search engine can handle both simple keyword-based queries as well as complex queries on structured data. Ontology-based interoperation is especially good at dealing with inconsistent semantics. However; ontologies are difficult to construct. The Java Ontology Editor (JOE) helps users build and browse ontologies. It also enables query formulation at several levels of abstraction. The authors discuss the use of JOE to develop a health care information system.