The Dryad repository http://www.datadryad.org/repo/ is for scientific data supporting published research in the field of evolutionary biology and related disciplines. Dryad was initiated in response to a crisis of data attrition" in the field of evolutionary biology. The project was launched via a collaboration between the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) and the Metadata Research Center (MRC) at the School of and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Additional partners include North Carolina State University, the University of New Mexico, Yale University, and major societies and journals in the field of evolutionary biology.

Dryad seeks to balance a need for low barriers inviting contribution from scientists and higher-level goals supporting data synthesis. The Dryad development team has pursed an active metadata research agenda to meet these goals. This presentation will introduce the Dryad repository, provide an overview of current metadata research activities, and highlight several research accomplishments.

Dryad has inspired launching of the newly formed Dublin Core Metadata Initiative's Science and Metadata (DCMI/SAM) community , and several brief comments about this community and its goals will also be shared.

Jane Greenberg holds a Frances Carroll McColl termed professorship in the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (SILS/UNC-CH). She is an associate professor and founder and director of the SILS Metadata Research Center. She served as program co-chair for the 2008 Dublin Core international metadata conference in Berlin, Germany, and was the 2008 recipient of the Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in Library and Information Technology. Her research and teaching focus in the area of metadata and classification.