Anu Korb was born in 1950 Kärdla, Estonia. She studied Estoniana language and literature at Tartu University (M.A.). Since 1975 she has been working at the Estonian Literary Museum as a researcher and an archivist of the Estonian Folklore Archieves, being in 1991-1998 the head of EFA.
Main field of research: history of the Estonian Folklore Archives, the theory of fokloristic fieldwork and the folklore of Russian (mainly Siberian) Estonians.
In 1991-2004 she collected folklore and life stories in the former Estonian settlements in Russia. She has compiled four books in the series "Estonian Settlements in Siberia" (1995-1999), a monograph about her fieldwork experience in Russia (2005) and CD publication "Songs of Siberian Estonians" (2005). She has also published several articles on folkloristic fieldwork and on Russian Estonians.
She is a member of the Academic Folklore Society and a head of the Eastern Estonians' Cultural Society.