News - Metalogue 2 released

Metalogue 2 released

September 2003

Metalogue – the repository of government service and information resource metadata – has already proven a valuable all-of-government asset. User-focussed service descriptions enriched with carefully chosen NZGLS classifications, power the government portal and a number of ‘subject’or ‘audience’ portals as well (see WorkSite – the labour market portal, TEd – the tertiary education portal and eLearn – the tertiary e-learning portal). And this is just the beginning.

It is easy to see how there is a multiplier effect in this reuse of metadata. However, as more sites become dependant on the metadata, the importance of keeping it aligned with the business it describes grows too.

In the e-government environment the business of agencies is rapidly changing. Services that start out as a simple description and contact details on a website, don’t stay that way for long. Not only do existing metadata records need to be updated to ensure that they're still relevant, but also new information resources, forms or fully online services available on sites, need to be added into Metalogue as well. A challenge for all agencies and the E-government Unit is to keep up the momentum and ensure the business processes and resources are in place to continue developing the metadata.

After a year or so of practical experience dealing with metadata and the tools provided to get the portal underway, a new front-end to the Metalogue has been designed from the ground up. Metalogue 2 will make the job of creating and maintaining metadata much easier for both expert ‘Metaloguers’ and those who only occasionally use the system.

The Metalogue database itself is also being streamlined to make it more easily scalable and better integrated with the portal’s spidered search indexes that complement the metadata.