Dr. Jane Greenberg, an assistant professor at UNC at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science (SILS), has received a $10,000 grant for her research on metadata.

The Online Computing Library Center (OCLC), with assistance from the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE), awarded funding for Greenberg's proposal "Optimizing Metadata Creation: A Model for Integrating Human and Automatic Processes."

Commonly defined as "data about data," metadata facilitates the organization and access of information resources. It is of special significance to scientific organizations which are turning with increased frequency to the World Wide Web for disseminating and accessing information.

Greenberg said the OCLC grant allows her to continue her research examining scientists creating metadata at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in Research Triangle Park. An earlier phase of her research, "Metadata Generation for Web Resources," was funded in July 2000 by Microsoft Corporation.

"I'm very excited to receive this grant because it allows me to examine another facet of metadata generation," Greenberg said. "I am also pleased to be able to continue working with the NIEHS metadata team headed by [NIEHS Library Director] Dav Robertson, NIEHS library staff and several SILS student interns."

The OCLC grant will allow Greenberg to examine the quality of data created by NIEHS scientists, professional catalogers and automatic processes. The goal of the research, she said, is to develop a model to facilitate the most efficient means of metadata production by integrating human and automatic processes.

Founded in 1967 by university presidents to share library resources and reduce library costs, OCLC introduced an online shared cataloging system for libraries in 1971 that today is used by libraries around the world. The mission of ALISE is to promote excellence in research, teaching and service for library and information science education. The NIEHS is one of 25 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health.