HCi Journal of Information Development


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Metadata update

In response to our article on Metadata in September last year, Duncan Jamieson, Assistant Director Recordkeeping Standards & Policy at National Archives of Australia, has kindly provided an update on developments with the Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS).

"There have been some recent changes to AGLS and the Commonwealth's implementation of AGLS. Standards Australia (SA), in conjunction with the National Archives of Australia (NAA), has now released AS 5044 - AGLS metadata element set (Parts 1 & 2).  This standard is intended to for use by any organisation creating or maintaining information services or resources that are locatable on the Internet, particularly the WWW.

While AS 5044 sets out the element set and qualifiers, the Commonwealth Government (through NAA and National Office for the information economy - NOIE) requires Federal agencies to include additional metadata elements in the Commonwealth's implementation of AGLS to help in the management of a number of Government portals and to help set the foundations for future

Government strategy such as e-Government (details at http://www.noie.gov.au/publications/NOIE/better_services-better_gov/index.htm)

  • NAA's information on AGLS can be found at www.agls.gov.au

  • An overview of the Commonwealth's implementation of AGLS can be  found at: http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/rkpubs/advices/advice47.html

  • The Commonwealth's AGLS implemation manual  can be found at http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/gov_online/agls/cim/cim_manual.html

  • The two parts to AS 5044 can be found at:    http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/govonline/agls/metadata_element_set.htm"

Any readers seeking further information are invited to email National Archives of Australia at agls@naa.gov.au.

This article may be reproduced only with the permission of HCi (email HCi ). Copyright HCi, 2001-3.

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