Marcia Lei Zeng

Marcia Lei Zeng is a professor emerita of information science at the School of Information, Kent State University.

In addition to the ASIS&T Award of Merit (2024), Zeng was recognized by Kent State University for Outstanding Research and Scholarship (2014), and the President’s Faculty Excellence Award (2016) from University President Beverly Warren. In 2016, she served as a U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar to Taiwan.

Life

Zeng has a B.A. (1982) and an M.A. (1984) in Library and Information Science from Wuhan University in China. Zeng taught as a lecturer at Wuhan University from 1985 to 1988. During her doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh, she worked in collection development in its East Asian Library and assisted on an OCLC-funded project. In 1992, she received a Ph.D. in Information Science from the School of Computing and Information of the University of Pittsburgh.

Contributions

Zeng worked for many years at Kent State University, serving as an assistant professor (1992-1997), associate professor (1997-2002), and professor (2003-2025). While affiliated with Kent State, she also taught as a visiting associate professor at Columbia University in New York (1999-2000) and later visited Taiwan as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar. At Kent State, Zeng taught courses such as: Cultural Heritage Informatics; Knowledge Organization, Structures, Systems and Services; Metadata Architecture and Implementation; Linked Data; and Knowledge Organization Structures for UXD. Zeng gave several keynote presentations:

• Keynote. "Generating Trustable Smart Data for Digital Humanities in the Age of AI – Possibilities and Challenges. " CDH2023 5th Chinese Digital Humanities Conference, Wuhan, China. Dec. 8-10, 2023.
• Keynote. "Semantic Enrichment of LAM Data to Support Digital Humanities." MTSR 2021. 15th International Conference on Metadata and Semantics Research, virtual, Nov. 29 - Dec. 3, 2021.
• Keynote. "Health KOSs in a Data-driven Age."  ISKO 2021 Lisboa: Knowledge Organization in Horizon 2030  - 5th Congress ISKO Spain-Portugal (15th ISKO Spain), Lisbon, Portugal, Nov. 25 - 26, 2021.
• Keynote: "Semantic Enrichment for Enhancing Historical and Cultural Heritage Data to Support Digital Humanities Research" HELDIG Digital Humanities Summit 2020, Dec 11, 2020. Helsinki, Finland. (Virtual)
• Keynote: "智慧數據 for 數字人文". 數位典藏與數位人文國際研討會 11th International Conference of Digital Archives and Digital Humanities, DADH 2020. Dec. 1-4, 2020. Taipei, Taiwan. (Virtual)
• Keynote: SWIB19 - 11th Semantic Web in Libraries Conference. Nov. 25-27, 2019. Hamburg, Germany.

Zeng was the P.I. and Co-P.I. of two National Science Foundation (NSF) National Science Digital Library (NSDL) projects and two Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded Linked Data projects:

• Co-Investigator and Principal Investigator from KSU (with Mike Crandall, University of Washington iSchool) on “Linked Data for Professional Education (LD4PE),” funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), National Leadership Grants, $249,527 (KSU awarded $72,075), 2014 – 2017.
• Principal Investigator and Project Director, “Connecting libraries to the unfamiliar data and metadata resources in the Linked Open Data (LOD) Universe-The Metadata Vocabulary Junction Project” (with Karen Gracy, KSU), funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), National Leadership Grants, $219,386, 2011 - 2013.
• National Science Foundation. National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Digital Library (NSDL) grant. P.I. ($150,784, Sept. 2003 - Aug. 2004); Co-P.I. ($607,394, Sept. 2001 - Aug. 2003).
• National Science Foundation. National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Digital Library (NSDL) grant. Co-P.I. ($607,394, Sept. 2001 - Aug. 2003, Project Director Gregory Shreve).

Currently (2025) Zeng is serving as an Executive Board member of the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO), chair of the DCMI Education Committee, and a member of the DCMI Governing Board. She was previously the chair of the IFLA Working Group on the Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records (FRSAR) and IFLA Classification and Indexing Section, an Invited Expert on the W3C Library Linked Data Incubator Group, a member of the EU ISA Program’s Asset Description Metadata Schema (ADMS) Working Group, Director-at-Large of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T, 2010-2013), Chair of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) Advisory Board, and chair of the iSchools Digital Humanities Curriculum Committee (iDHCC) for the global iSchools consortium, among many other service roles and accomplishments.

Publications

Source:[1]

Books:

• Subirats, I. & Zeng, M. L. (2020). Linked Open Data Enabled Bibliographical Data (LODE-BD) 3.0 – A practical guide on how to select appropriate encoding strategies for producing Linked Open Data Enabled Bibliographical Data. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. doi:10.4060/cb2209en ISBN 978-9-25-133655-7
• Zeng, M.L., & Qin, J. (2022). Metadata, Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman. ISBN 978-0-8389-4875-0

Articles:

• Zeng, M. L. & Mayr, P. (2018). Knowledge organization systems (KOS) in the semantic web. International Journal on Digital Libraries. doi:10.1007/s00799-018-0241-2 Online version 2018.05 https://rdcu.be/PgZW
• Zeng, M. L. (2019). Semantic enrichment for enhancing LAM data and supporting digital humanities. El profesional de la información, 28(1), e280103. doi:10.3145/epi.2019.ene.03
• Zeng, M. L. & Clunis, J. (2020). FAIR + FIT: Guiding principles and functional metrics for linked open data (LOD) KOS products. Journal of Data and Information Science (JDIS), 5(1), 93-118. doi:10.2478/jdis-2020-0008
• Zeng, M. L., Hong, Y., Clunis, J., He, S., & Coladangelo, L. P. (2020, June 24). Implications of knowledge organization systems for health information exchange and communication during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Information Management, 4(3), 148–170. doi:10.2478/dim-2020-0009

Awards

• "Among Top 2% Scientists Worldwide" with featured image. Kent State University, Feb. 2026.[2]
• ASIS&T Award of Merit, 2024.[3][4]
• "Among Top 2% of researchers for 2022". Kent State University, Dec. 2023.[5]
• ASIS&T Distinguished Member, Inaugural Class of 2021
• Linked Conservation Data (as a member of the Consortium [W3C]), funded by UKRI Arts & Humanities Research Council, 2019 - 2021.
• Best Poster Award, CIDOC International Council of Museums (ICOM) 25th General Conference. Kyoto, Japan, 1–7 September 2019.
• CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title (2017): Zeng, M, L. & Qin, J. (2016). Metadata (2nd ed.). ALA Neal-Schuman. Facet Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78330-052-5 Companion Website: http://metadataetc.org/book-website2nd/
• President’s Faculty Excellence Award, Kent State University, 2016.[6]

• U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Taiwan, 2015 - 2016.[7]
• Outstanding Research and Scholarship Award, Kent State University, April 2014.[8]
• Scholar of the Month, Kent State University, March 2014.[9]
• Distinguished Teaching Award (for comprehensive knowledge of her field, effective organization and presentation of subject matter and the demonstration of resourcefulness in teaching). College of Communication and Information, Kent State University, 2013.
• Best Poster Award, International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications (DC2008), Berlin, Germany, Aug. 22-26, 2008: Marcia L Zeng, Wei Fan, and Xia Lin: "SKOS for an Integrated Vocabulary Structure".
• University Teaching Council honor for "a faculty member who made a difference in their academic careers at KSU" as recognized by graduates. Kent State University. 2001.
• American Society for Information Science (ASIS) Doctoral Forum Award (for outstanding doctoral research done in the information field). 1992.
• Beta Phi Mu, (International Library Science Honors Society), 1992.
• Beta Phi Mu (International Library & Information Studies Honor Society) Pi Chapter Award for Scholarly Research, 1990.
• Catherine Ofiesh Orner Award (in recognition of excellence and outstanding achievement in information science by a student). Presented by the School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh. 1990.

Further Reading

• Zeng, Marcia (2025). "Curriculum Vitae". Marcia Lei Zeng. Metadata etc. [10]
• "Notice about holding an academic reporting session by Professor Zeng Lei of Kent State University, USA" [关于举办美国肯特州立大学曾蕾教授学术报告的通知]. School of Electronic and Information Engineering (Press release). Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China: South China University of Technology. [11]
• "US Kent State University School of Library and Information Science Professor Zeng Lei (Marcia Zeng) Visits Taiwan!" [美國肯特州立大學圖書資訊學院-曾蕾教授(Marcia Zeng)造訪台灣！]. TELDAP e-Newsletter. No. 466. Taipei, Taiwan: Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program. 2012-07-23. [12]
• "Fulbright Scholar Directory". Fulbright Scholar Program. [13]