The Business
Problem
The State of
Arizona wanted
to improve
public and state
agency Internet
access to
government
information. To
accomplish this
mission, the
state decided in
1999 to launch a
Government
Information
Locator Service
(GILS) website,
called Find-It!
Arizona. Already
in use in over
20 states, a
GILS web site
gathers
information
across
government web
sites, allowing
citizens and
state agencies
to search for
information
without needing
to know which
agency provides
the information
or service.
"The
advantage of
using a
GILS-specialized
search engine is
that it yields
more relevant
search results
than full text
searching
alone," explains
Susan Alden,
Library
Consultant at
the Arizona
State Library
and Project
Manager for the
Arizona GILS
project. "GILS
looks for
metatags, which
accurately index
the content of a
web page and
enhance search
precision and
relevancy. The
GILS search
engine provides
a higher
relevancy
ranking for
metatagged
documents, which
enables people
to find what
they need more
quickly. In
addition, GILS
provides subject
categories as an
alternative
search method
for users who
prefer to browse
for
information."
Although
Arizona was sold
on the benefits
of using GILS,
there remained
two problems.
The first was
the labor
required to
embed metadata
in legacy and
archived
documents in
order to make
them indexable
and searchable.
The second
hurdle was
devising a
simple solution
that would
enable
individual state
agencies and
libraries to
embed metadata
into new
documents on an
ongoing basis
with minimal
labor and
training.
The Solution
The State of
Arizona solved
both of these
hurdles with
TagGen, an
automated
metadata tagging
solution from
HiSoftware.
"TagGen
helped us
jumpstart the
Find-It! Arizona
project by
proving a
simple, very
effective method
to index library
and state agency
content with
rich GILS
metadata. Tested
in the summer
and brought up
in Fall2000, it
was the only
solution we
found that
supported the
GILS metadata
schema without
requiring
extensive
customization.
We can
automatically
apply metatags
across multiple
files and
directories. As
a result, we
have
dramatically
increased both
the content and
relevancy of
information
being accessed
through Find-It!
Arizona," said
Ms. Alden.
The Find-It!
Arizona GILS
website is
currently a
pilot project
through June
2001. Once the
pilot project is
complete, it
will be
considered as a
link from the
State of Arizona
Web Portal,
currently under
development.
|
