[Metadatalibrarians] whatever happened to gils?

[Kristin E. Martin]

I can't say for certain what happened to GILS, but I think it just 
slowly faded away.  It was a combination of other metadata standards, 
like Dublin Core, gaining traction; new ways of sharing metadata through 
OAI-PMH; improved results from search engines like Google; and I think 
the main people working on it on the federal level left or retired.  The 
idea of tagging government websites to improve their findability was 
never fully implemented and gradually became viewed as unnecessary.  I 
used to work for the State Library of North Carolina, which was a state 
involved in implementing GILS at the state level.  In 2005 we held the 
last State GILS conference.  Already by then the focus of the conference 
had moved far afield of GILS and was looking at repository software and 
digital preservation.  The following year in 2006 North Carolina hosted 
the first Best Practices Exchange, which grew out of the GILS tradition 
of state government information professionals getting together, but the 
focus has been much more on digital asset management and curation of 
digital objects, as opposed to tagging government websites 
(http://www.bpexchange.org/).  I doubt GILS is talked about much there.

Since I haven't worked with government information for a few years I 
can't say for certain what's happened, but if you'd like, you can 
contact me off-list and I can give you the names of some people who 
might know the status of GILS more definitively.

Kristin

Kristin E. Martin
Metadata Librarian
Catalog Department (MC 234)
2-390 Richard J. Daley Library
University of Illinois at Chicago
801 S. Morgan
Chicago, IL  60607
312-413-5052
312-413-0424 (Fax)
kmarti at uic.edu



Riley, Jenn wrote:
> Hello metadata-librarian folk,
>
> I have a vague recollection from a few years ago that the federal government discontinued support for GILS metadata but I'm having trouble finding any documentation to confirm my recollection or to indicate when it is support was discontinued. Certainly the URLs associated with GILS I see out there (http://www.gils.net/, http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/gils/index.html, http://www.usgs.gov/gils/) are all dead. Can anyone point me to specific information on what happened to GILS, when, and why?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jenn 
>
> ========================
> Jenn Riley
> Metadata Librarian
> Digital Library Program
> Indiana University - Bloomington
> Wells Library W501
> (812) 856-5759
> www.dlib.indiana.edu
>
> Inquiring Librarian blog: www.inquiringlibrarian.blogspot.com
>
>
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