Well, at long last, my summary. I apologize for the delay. In a nutshell, what I learned is that metadata creation is a custom process for each organization. No one has developed a universal, one-size-fits-all process for metadata creation and maintenance. I'm not going to attempt to either, but I'll share with you the process and tools that look like they're going to work for us (w/ apologies if this is too US- and Windows-centric to help you): Tools (see links near end of message), all FREE: -NOAA's Metadata Collector extension (for AV 3.x) -mp, Metadata parser from Peter Schweitzer of USGS -TKME, metadata editor from the same Note these are just a few of the available tools. Hugh Phillips has compiled a list and evaluation of many other tools - see link below. Process: 0. As background, skim the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) so that you will understand what your metadata must look like, why, and what is the meaning of the error messages generated by mp. An image map of the CSDGM (see link below) will help tremendously. 1. Use NOAA's Metadata Collector extension to create an initial metadata file. THis extension automates a lot of the tedious parts of the metadata, like projection information and attribute definitions. Note that this extension is for AV 3.x. NOAA says that they are not developing an extension for 8.1 because of its built-in metadata tools. Haven't seen these yet, so I don't know how this will change. 2. Open the metadata file in TKME 3. Edit content and tree structure as needed 4. Run mp and review error log file 5. Fix errors using TKME as necessary 6. Run mp and review error log file 7. Repeat steps 5 & 6 as necessary to remove all "important" errors 8. Run mp one last time just to be sure. 9. Save metadata file with same name (with .met extension) as the spatial data it belongs to and in the same directory as the data. Note that it looks like 8.1's ArcCatalog component will make keeping metadata and spatial data together much more intuitive. As you become better-versed in metadata creation, steps 3-8 will probably condense to one or two steps. Links: -FGDC content standard: http://www.fgdc.gov/metadata/contstan.html -Image map graphical representation of the FGDC Metadata Content Standard - a godsend! http://biology.usgs.gov/fgdc.metadata/version2/ -NOAA Metadata Collector extension: http://www.csc.noaa.gov/metadata/text/download.html -Peter Schweitzer's USGS metadata software download page and with links to miscellaneous reference materials: http://geology.usgs.gov/tools/metadata/ -Hugh Phillips' (State of Wisconsin) reviews of available metadata tools: http://www.state.wi.us/agencies/wlib/sco/metatool/ -- Evan Kane Geologist II NC Dept of Environment and Natural Resources Division of Water Quality - Groundwater Section 1636 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699-1636 evan.kane@ncmail.net Phone (919)715-6184 Fax (919)715-0588