News - Archive manage standard

Archives New Zealand to manage new e-government standard

October 2001

Archives New Zealand is the Custodian of one of the first all of government standards to be delivered through the e-government programme. As Custodian of the New Zealand Government Locator Service (NZGLS) standard, Archives New Zealand will administer use of the standard to catalogue government services and information. They will also ensure it stays aligned and contributes to the development of related international standards.

An advisory board has been established to review the standard and the first update of the NZGLS will be issued shortly. The update incorporates feedback from agencies that have already applied the standard to create metadata records on their websites. This includes the work done recently by the National Library to look into the practicalities of making their website NZGLS compliant. The study highlighted a need for consistent naming of encoding schemes, some further alignment with the Dublin Core standard and more concise documentation.

The information collected under the NZGLS standard will be used in the new government web portal, which is scheduled to go live on 1 July 2002. It is a requirement that all government departments meet the new standard. Organisations in the wider State Sector and local government have been encouraged to do so too.

Chief Archivist, Dianne Macaskill, and Brendan Boyle, Director of the E-government Unit of the State Services Commission signed a service level agreement covering the work of Archives New Zealand and the continuing Stewardship role of the State Services Commission shortly before Christmas.