Using the data collected from a nationwide study drawn from the community of cataloging and metadata professionals, this study aims to assess the current state of locally added metadata elements used across digital repositories. Addition of locally created metadata elements is a fairly common practice adopted by over one-third of the survey participants. Homegrown elements for descriptive metadata comprising local notes and description, local personal and place names, and local subjects are added most frequently, followed by administrative, technical, and preservation metadata. The major reason for extending metadata is to accommodate the perceived needs of local collections and their users. Yet, there are currently few open mechanisms for finding and sharing documented information about such localized metadata practices.