Australian subject gateways - metadata as an agent of change

Although the concept of a subject gateway has only risen to prominence in Australia during the last two years, several university library consortia and other educationbased initiatives, including EdNA Online and the Australian Digital Theses Project, have already been successful in achieving collaborative approaches for the delivery of national access to electronic resources. The critical success factors realised, including the deployment of metadata and the community approaches to problem solving, mean that Australia is positioned to participate in new initiatives exploring service provision in a national infrastructure for integrated research and information access.