AIMS

The first COAIM (Consultation on Agricultural information Management), held in June 2000 recognized that AGRIS should become “a key enabler and catalyst to establish a new model of agricultural information management”. Furthermore, it was agreed that FAO [1] should develop AGRIS into a capacity building initiative as well as an information system. The AGRIS network now has 201 Resource Centres, which vary in their resources and level of participation in the network, and opportunities exist to improve the effectiveness of the initiative through enhanced collaboration. A proposal for a new metadata standard for AGRIS reference was presented at COAIM 2002. This paper is a result of the evaluations made during COAIM 2002. It defines a set of high quality metadata on scientific and technical papers, and is directed at improving accessibility of materials on the Web. The standard also covers the necessary metadata for retrieving publications that are available only in paper format or that have restricted access.