The use of AGLS metadata is mandatary for Commonwealth agencies, and state and local government have also adopted the standard. Web Wombat has been working with all levels of government in the development of the search service.
According to Peter Maniatis, the company's business development manager, the search service is already in use by the federal Department of Veterans' Affairs and discussions are under way with other Victorian agencies. -We haven't engaged the New South Wales state government yet," he said, although various agencies around the country are using Web Wombat's corporate search tools that can retrieve data from multiple sources including document management systems, SQL databases, PDF files and Web pages.
Based on the Dublin Core metadata standard (ISO 15836), AGLS provides metadata items such as Creator, Date (eg, date modified or the date on which the document ceases to be valid) and title. The National Archives of Australia AGLS documentation notes that -The use of standardised metadata such as AGLS will help clients and citizens to find the government resource that they require amidst the immense and often anarchic information space of the World Wide Web."
Web Wombat's service allows agencies to support AGLS metadata search without having to purchase the necessary software. The service can also be used to search across multiple government portals and databases.
That NAA document also states -Unfortunately, a large number of commercial search engines do not have the capacity to exploit AGLS or Dublin Core metadata", but Web Wombat may add AGLS searching to its www.govsearch.com.au and www.edusearch.com.au search engines, Maniatis said.
