A call for papers for the 2nd North American DDI conference is now open.  Proposals are due by January 19, 2014. This year's event will be held at Simon Frasier University, Vancouver March 31- April 2, 2013.  Conference sponsors include the Sloan Foundation, ICPSR, and Simon Frasier University.  http://www.rdl.sfu.ca/NADDI/

DDI stands for the Data Documentation Initiative, an initiative "to create an international standard for describing data from the social, behavioral, and economic sciences. Expressed in XML, the DDI metadata specification now supports the entire research data life cycle. DDI metadata accompanies and enables data conceptualization, collection, processing, distribution, discovery, analysis, repurposing, and archiving.”  http://www.rdl.sfu.ca/NADDI/about/

Deborah Ludwig, Assistant Dean
University of Kansas Libraries