> ISSN 1443-0568 | no. 40 | August 1999
NLA and the library community
More gateways and metadata initiatives
Debbie Campbell (above) from the Library's MetaWeb Project, will deliver a paper entitled Dublin Core Metadata and the Australian MetaWeb Project at ALIAs National Library Technicians' Conference in Perth, 810 September
The National Library has supplied its own gateway service on its new Web site. It has implemented the Australian Government Locator Service and provided a search engine, UltraSeek, to exploit this metadata investment. It is available for use at http://www.nla.gov.au/search.html.
In addition, the Library works with the three university-based subject gateway projects: Agrigate, AVEL (Australian Virtual Engineering Library) and MetaChem. Each of the gateways is focused around a disciplineAgriculture, Engineering and IT, and Chemistryand each has developed a metadata schema suitable for describing its resources. The schemas are based on the Dublin Core, with extensions. In addition, each gateway has identified at least one subject-specific thesaurus that assists in refining the description of the resources selected.
The features of the gateways are fully described in a document prepared for an international workshop at which gateway teamsfrom the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Japan and Europemet to discuss issues in common. The details are available at http://www.nla.gov.au/meta/imesh/overview.html.
The current critical issues, which are common across the gateway developments, may be summarised as:
A paper discussing these issues has been made available to all interested parties for comment at http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/sg/. Feedback may be sent to Debbie Campbell, NLA Metadata Coordinator, on (02) 6262 1673 or to the email address, dcampbel@nla.gov.au.
In an attempt to solve some of the issues, the National Library has released a best practice guide for new gateways, which builds upon the work of Agrigate, AVEL, and MetaChem. The guide is available for comment at http://www.nla.gov.au/libraries/resource/criteria.html.
As reported elsewhere in this issue of Gateways, the National Librarys international PADI service has also become a gateway. The subject is Preservation of Digital Information and the gateway provides links to evaluated resources in this area, including papers, conferences, Web sites, and in-house materials. It is applying the Dublin Core metadata schema, which is searchable at
http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/. Soon to be added will be a new metadata schema to assist in the process of managing and preserving digital objects.
The National Library provides links to many other gateways and offers advice on metadata application at its new Web site, MetaMatters, http://www.nla.gov.au/meta/.
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: lkirwan@nla.gov.au