Approaches to Interoperability Amongst Australian Digital Information Providers

Abstract

The results from a questionnaire survey distributed to Australian institutions hosting digital collections, are presented. It was found that few metadata schemas are being used, although several others are being contemplated; that content standards tend to follow format standards; and that in-house standards are often required to supplement these. A fairly low level of resource and metadata exchange is taking place. Standards were considered important for a variety of reasons, a leading reason being interoperability. However, when it came to practice and new initiatives, there was a range of approaches taken to achieve interoperability. Some institutions concentrate on interoperability across their own systems, others focus on cross-institutional projects. Some institutions stress adherence to metadata standards, others are implementing new technologies that can handle different metadata formats and content.