You must be wondering why someone would agree at the last moment to act as a substitute for a key speaker at Online On Disc, especially when that someone has never spoken at a conference before. However, after you have heard a little more about our Australian contribution to international collaborative subject gateways, youāll probably wonder why you havenāt heard of our efforts before.
Iām hoping to make up this shortfall now. In fact, you probably know of some our national projects. Iād just like to bring you up to date on their progress.
In 1998, I worked on the MetaWeb Project, a joint project of the Australian Defence Force Academy, Charles Sturt University, the DSTC (Distributed Systems Technology Centre), and the National Library. The goals of the project were to increase understanding of the use of standard metadata schemas for electronic resources, and provide a set of software, free-of-charge, to any metadata community which would assist people in creating and managing metadata.
The software was intended to address two major problems of searching for resources on the Web:
The goals of the Project were achieved ö from the Project Web site, you can obtain the software, and links to the sites of experienced implementors. You can also obtain advice on the implementation of standard metadata schemas used in Australia, such as the Dublin Core, the Australian Government Locator Service, known as AGLS and the EdNA Metadata Schema.
Metadata has been defined as data about data, or information about information, even a tool for resource description. Iād like to isolate the "meta" nub of the word, which means to transform or change, and define metadata as a change agent. In Australia, it certainly has been that. It has allowed organisations to review all of the resources they make available to themselves and their stakeholders, including Web sites, Library catalogues, corporate documents and public paper-based documents, with a view to providing integrated access to them. Organisations which have already started this process include Centrelink, CSIRO, NLA and some universities.
Although the MetaWeb Project is finished, its software has been adopted and adapted by several Australian subject gateways, which Iāll discuss in a moment. In addition, the National Library still provides an advisory service in the application of metadata, partly because some of the issues regarding its application are still to be addressed.
For example, the stabilisation of the Dublin Core standard itself has been discussed at length, most recently at an international developers workshop in Washington in November. While the unqualified schema, that is the 15 basic elements which make up the simplest form of the Dublin Core, has been through a rigorous process, there is still a little bit of doubt about its application.
However, donāt let this deter you. It hasnāt deterred the National Archives of Australia from basing the Australian Government Locator Service metadata schema on Dublin Core. AGLS has been adopted by many Commonwealth and State government departments for their Web sites, to facilitate fast, easy searching.
It hasnāt deterred the Federal Government from launching its Business Entry Point web site, which gives a lot of information to small businesses about how to set up and manage all aspects of their operation. It hasnāt prevented AusInfo from setting up the Commonwealth governmentās entry point to all federal departments.
The experiences of these sites can be shared with new implementors, and they are happy to do so. They have made available their metadata creation guidelines and interpretation rules which you can adopt or adapt as required. So, just try it.
In a disciplinary sense, the sites I have mentioned can also be considered Australian subject gateways. For example, EdNA which is an educational gateway linking to resources for schools, universities and adult education services. It provides support services for teachers or educators in all of these domains. Similarly, the government Web sites provide gateway services to the general population.
However, two special subject gateway projects were commenced last year to provide single entry points to selected collections of information in two disciplines. The first is known as Agrigate, the second is MetaChem. Iād like to describe these subject gateways to you in a small amount of detail. Agrigate is a cooperative venture of the universities of Melbourne, Adelaide, and several branches of the CSIRO. The University of Melbourne is the lead institution. It provides a single gateway to selected agricultural resources of Australia, and to a lesser extent, the Pacific.
Each resource is assessed according to a stringent set of selection criteria. The gateway provides facilities for resource description using the Dublin Core and some Agrigate-specific elements. Any person interested in this gateway can suggest new items for inclusion, but the metadata is enhanced by participant librarians. For 1999, Agrigate has been successful in securing a second round of funding. While the resources chosen for inclusion initially are essentially Web-based, the second phase will permit the inclusion of under-utilised or unknown resources such as databases, and paper-based reports.
MetaChem has also been supported by science librarians and chemists from various universities around the country, including the University of NSW (which is the lead institution), ADFA, and the universities of Sydney and Melbourne. Again, it has relied on librarians to identify key electronic resources and provided enhanced metadata for chemistry resources. Because chemistry has no boundaries, MetaChem is an international gateway.
These gateways have several factors in common.
in terms of their hosting services:
Standards-based:
In fact, the major technical issue facing the gateways is the wide choice of technologies available.
Participatory factors are as follows:
A new gateway has been funded in 1999, with similar characteristics of Agrigate and MetaChem. The Australian equivalent of the UK-based EEVL, it is currently known as AVEL. It will be established at the University of Queensland with assistance from its Library, the DSTC and the Australian Institute of Engineers. AVEL will incorporate selected resources of both engineering and information technology content.
Australia has observed, and to a certain extent, adopted the gateway model utilised in the United Kingdom by the e-Lib subject gateway projects. You may have heard of some of them. EEVL, SOSIG, a Social Sciences Gateway and OMNI, a medical gateway. They have been funded since 1994, to provide students and researchers in Higher Education institutions with access to qualitative Web resources. They are now looking at ways to become sustainable without imposing usage fees, and extend what have been highly successful gateway services to include other disciplines.
At the end of 1998, a new proposal was put forward by eLib. A Network Centre which would assume the responsibilities common to all gateways, such as training, and service-wide technical development. In fact, an instigator of the Network Centre is a speaker at the conference, Lynne Brindley.
The UK quickly realised that Australia could assist by covering subject disciplines not currently catered for in the United Kingdom, or by providing metadata about additional resources to ensure enhance coverage. To this end, a new Web site, known as Imesh, has been established to coordinate the concept. This development has allowed Australia and the UK to make contact with similar efforts in other countries, such as the Nordic countries and the United States.
It has been more difficult to find out about US developments with gateways, partly because there is a less united approach to collaboration. Steve Cramond, Information Infrastructure Liaison Officer for the AustralianVice-Chancellors Committee in 1998, has been able to discover some US initiatives. One effort, is of course, Susan Calcariās.
Susan has sought support from the United Statesā National Science Foundation to fund the ISAAC Network: an initiative of the SCOUT Project. ISAAC stands for Information Seekerās Avenue to Authoritative Content, and itās essential objective is as follows: to link together selective collections of high quality Internet resources hand-chosen and provided with metadata.
The primary audience of this Internet SCOUT Project is the higher education community. Given the common aims, it is only sensible for Australia, the UK, the US and Europe to work together, hence Imesh: an international resource discovery mesh.
There has been one meeting of potential IMesh participants, in September last year, which conducted an initial tentative exploration of some technical and logistical issues. Two discrete workshops will be held in 1999, to discuss the following common areas of concern:
Australia is only too willing to assist in the development of international subject gateways, given our recognised expertise.
Debbie Campbell
Metadata Coordinator
Coordination Support Branch
National Library of Australia
Ph. 02 6262 1673
Em. dcampbel@nla.gov.au
Debbie Campbell has an Information Technology background, and has worked at the National Library for 13 years. Most recently, she was appointed the NLA's Metadata Coordinator and in that role has acted in an advisory capacity for several of Australia's academic and government gateway projects. This is her first conference presentation.