Background/History

In 1994, the U.S. Federal government formally began implementing a Government Information Locator Service (GILS) to identify, describe, and provide assistance in obtaining, public information resources. To improve access to information, and in recognition of great changes in information and networking technology, the government had previously convened groups of experts to develop consensus on the appropriate technical approach for GILS. The experts drafted a consensus GILS Profile based on ANSI Z39.50 and other international standards. The profile was approved as an Implementors Agreement and coordinated for approval of the international Open Systems Environment Implementors' Workshop by its Special Interest Group on Library Applications (OIW/SIG-LA). With its standing as an international Applications Profile, the U.S. Federal Government adopted the Implementors Agreement as part of Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 192.

The GILS Subgroup was formed in March of 1995 as part of the OIW/SIG-LA. The GILS Subgroup operated throughout 1995 as an information sharing organization, and contributed valuable support towards successful, initial release of the U.S. Federal GILS in January of 1996. Participation in the GILS Subgroup has always been open to anyone: public and private agencies, organizations, associations, or enterprises, whether profit, non-profit, or academic; government at Federal, state, and local levels, whether U.S., international or other nations; and any other interested parties.

Purpose

The purpose of the GILS Subgroup is to help fully realize the potential of the Government Information Locator Service (GILS) concept, and to promote the development and use of this open systems approach for information search and retrieval. The Subgroup exists to help organizations implement GILS, and also to encourage effective evolution of the GILS standard to meet new uses. To accomplish these purposes, the GILS Subgroup: 1) serves as an open forum for the exchange of ideas on GILS development, use, and refinement, 2) forwards to the OIW/SIG-LA appropriate recommendations for changes to GILS, and 3) promotes sound implementation and broad public awareness of GILS. One emphasis of the Subgroup is to strengthen the U.S. Federal GILS to provide a model and test case for other GILS implementations.

Approach

The Subgroup will create and sustain a community of GILS implementors and users, linking together software developers, information creators, information providers, various levels of government, information advocacy groups, the general public, librarians, records managers, standards bodies, and other interested parties. This community of implementors and users will be enabled through periodic meetings, and through communications on the GILS listserver. All recommendations developed at the periodic meetings will be distributed via the listserver for comment and additional discussion prior to becoming final. Advance notices and brief summaries of all periodic meetings will also be posted to the listserver.

posted on GILS Forum April 4, 1996 -- assumed to be final

[Available: URL: <gopher://gopher.cni.org:70/0R25977-31189-cniftp/pub/gils/forum/log9604>]

Next Appendix
Previous Appendix
Table of Contents