diff --git a/app/corpora/views.py b/app/corpora/views.py
index 3a06b204..e7862b17 100644
--- a/app/corpora/views.py
+++ b/app/corpora/views.py
@@ -113,7 +113,6 @@ def add_corpus_file(corpus_id):
                                  corpus=corpus, dir=dir, filename=filename,
                                  publishing_year=add_corpus_file_form.publishing_year.data,
                                  title=add_corpus_file_form.title.data)
-        corpus_file.insert_metadata()
         db.session.add(corpus_file)
         db.session.commit()
         flash('Corpus file added!')
diff --git a/app/models.py b/app/models.py
index 5c08da59..4987fb4c 100644
--- a/app/models.py
+++ b/app/models.py
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ from flask import current_app
 from flask_login import UserMixin, AnonymousUserMixin
 from itsdangerous import BadSignature, TimedJSONWebSignatureSerializer
 from werkzeug.security import generate_password_hash, check_password_hash
+import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
 from . import db
 from . import login_manager
 from datetime import datetime
@@ -410,6 +411,18 @@ class CorpusFile(db.Model):
     title = db.Column(db.String(64))
     corpus_id = db.Column(db.Integer, db.ForeignKey('corpora.id'))
 
+    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
+        super(CorpusFile, self).__init__(**kwargs)
+        file = os.path.join(current_app.config['OPAQUE_STORAGE_DIRECTORY'],
+                            self.dir,
+                            self.filename)
+        element_tree = ET.parse(file)
+        text_node = element_tree.find('text')
+        text_node.set('author', self.author)
+        text_node.set('publishing_year', str(self.publishing_year))
+        text_node.set('title', self.title)
+        element_tree.write(file)
+
     def delete(self):
         logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
         logger.warning('Called CorpusFile.delete')
@@ -424,9 +437,6 @@ class CorpusFile(db.Model):
         db.session.delete(self)
         db.session.commit()
 
-    def insert_metadata(self):
-        pass
-
 
 class Corpus(db.Model):
     """