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The MetaWeb Project is pleased to announce the availability of Australian software tools which support the generation and maintenance of standard metadata sets, thereby improving the search mechanisms for networked information resources. The software tools have been configured to run at an organisational or a national level. Any government department, university, institution or business interested in creating high quality metadata can adapt the tools to create an in-house repository of metadata accessible either internally or externally. The software tools have been developed in the JAVA programming language, which permits their deployment on a range of UNIX and NT platforms. They are: * A Gatherer, which collects metadata embedded in resources at pre-specified Web addresses for subsequent querying; * A Search Engine (or Broker), which indexes the metadata and makes it available for querying; * A Generator, to embed 6 of the Dublin Core elements (with default values) into all resources in a Web directory; * A Query Interface, in two modes - Quick Search and Combined Search for retrieving resources based on their metadata descriptions. The software tools currently support the Dublin Core metadata element set, but are configurable to support other standard metadata element sets used in Australia, including the AGLS (Australian Government Locator Service), EdNA (Education Network of Australia), and ANZLIC (Australia & New Zealand Land Information Council). The software tools are available as executables, free-of-charge, from http://purl.nla.gov.au/metaweb/home. Please send all comments and queries to: Debbie Campbell, MetaWeb Project Coordinator, National Library of Australia, [log in to unmask] 02 6262 1673. Thank you, Debbie Campbell MetaWeb Project Coordinator ph. 02 6262 1673 fx. 02 6273 1180 e-mail [log in to unmask] http://purl.nla.gov.au/metaweb/home