Repository Metadata Collection and Curation Practices
Joint Barcelona Declaration and COAR survey
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Metadata help people discover and reuse research outputs, and repositories play an important role in making this possible. But approaches to collecting, curating and sharing metadata can vary.
Through this joint survey, the Barcelona Declaration and COAR (The Confederation of Open Access Repositories) invite people who work with repositories to share their experience. The responses will help build a clearer picture of current practices, the challenges repositories face and where there may be opportunities to strengthen metadata practices across the community.
To support participation from repository communities around the world, the survey is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese. Offering these language versions helps lower language barriers and makes it easier for people to share perspectives from their own contexts.
What does the survey cover?
The survey covers the following topics:
- Repository scope and key practices
- Metadata collection and curation practices
- Metadata sources and how they are used to populate records
- Metadata availability and reuse
- Metadata use, challenges and opportunities
Who should respond?
The survey is intended for repository managers, repository librarians, technical leads, curators and others familiar with repository workflows and metadata practices.
It covers institutional, national, disciplinary, federal and other repositories. If your organisation operates more than one repository, you can submit a separate response for each.
Take part
The survey is open from 3 November to 15 December 2026. It is available in:
- English - survey form / pdf
- Español - survey form / pdf
- Português - survey form / pdf
- 中文 - survey form / pdf
The survey can only be answered through the online survey forms. PDF versions of the survey are provided to review the questions before filling out the survey form, and are for information purposes only.
The survey will take about 20-30 minutes to complete.
Questions about the survey? Contact survey@barcelona-declaration.org.
Translation and review acknowledgements
We are grateful to the colleagues who contributed their time and expertise to translating and reviewing the survey. Their work helps make it accessible to repository communities across different language contexts:
Bárbara Rivera López (Barcelona Declaration)
Jerneja Grašič (University of Maribor, Slovenia)
Ricardo Hartley Belmar
Luciana Mara Silva (LA Referencia / Universidad del Estado de Santa Catarina, Brazil)
Lautaro Matas (LA Referencia)
André Luiz Appel (Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia - IBICT, Brazil)
Dr. Tongqi Wei (Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences,China)