Tackling the metadata challenge of funding attribution for grey literature resources

This paper addresses the challenges of creating metadata for funding attribution statements in grey literature. As part of a collaboration between the Vanier Institute of the Family and Reimagining Care/Work Policies to increase the visibility of their research on childcare, parental leave, and employment policies in Canada, and to support the Vanier Institute’s effort to expand their collection of resources on families in Canada, the Institute began cataloguing and disseminating selected grey resources from Reimagining Care/Work Policies. This process revealed complex scenarios for accurately describing and attributing authorship, funding, and production in the metadata. To support transparency, consistency, compliance with government funding requirements, as well as discoverability of these resources, the Vanier Institute and Reimagining Care/Work Policies collaborated to develop four funding attribution statements to describe these relationships and classify the resources. This shared framework allowed for a more structured approach to creating metadata for funding attribution. This project also demonstrates how collaborative metadata practices can support institutional needs and open access to research. This work may offer insight and guidance for other organizations navigating similar attribution challenges in their grey literature collections.