Locator A locator is defined as an information resource that identifies other information resources, describes the information available in those resources, and provides assistance in obtaining the information. It is typically modeled as a database of locator records, each of which is a set of related data elements descriptive of various characteristics of an information resource.
Depending on how they are created and the nature of the information resource, locator records can be known by many other names: metadata, meta-information, directories, catalogs, abstracts, etc.
Outside of a specific policy context, there is no prescription for what is an appropriate level of aggregation. GILS locator records already exist for everything from individual pamphlets to multi-national programs. North Carolina is using GILS locator records to describe individual fields within databases throughout the state. The Government Printing Office has created GILS locator records at the level of entire Federal agencies.
Servers acting as GILS locators are also information resources and can themselves be described by a GILS locator record in other GILS locators. Using the Linkage element, the separate GILS locators can be exploited as a network for distributed search, and traversal of that network can be informed by any of the resource characteristics described (e.g., Subject Terms, Originator, Distributor Name, Access Constraints). This recursive feature should make GILS useful in attempts to solve the "query routing" problem of Internet searching.