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I will serve as Interim Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to help transition DuraSpace to new leadership. I'm very fortunate to have Valorie Hollister, Director of Membership and Finance at DuraSpace and Bill Branan, Services Technical Director assisting with this process.
If we haven’t had a chance to meet allow me to introduce myself.
I’m a Canadian and have been a librarian in open source software (OSS) and communities since 2011. I started my career with the Islandora community and have worked on more than forty OSS digital repository projects. Before entering into the world of open source, I ran my own small research business called CloudScout Information Services and worked in a small research library at Environment Canada.
My work at DuraSpace to date has been focused on building new initiatives related to grant projects, delivering professional services that support open projects and services, as well as programs that foster collaboration with open source service providers. Recently, in 2018 I participated in the Mozilla Open Leadership Training Series and applied it to building communities efforts around our open source DuraCloud software and the ARKs-in-the-Open project. I’m also an active member of the Research Data Canada (RDC) Infrastructure Committee.
My interim role as DuraSpace CEO will have me coordinating day-to-day operations of DuraSpace over the next few months, carrying out ongoing initiatives that deliver on DuraSpace’s mission, and assisting in the search for a permanent CEO.
Our team has achieved some big goals this past month, including:
- Launching our new website, https://duraspace.org/
- Announcing a collaborative partnership with COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories)
- Representing our technologies and communities at the Open Repositories conference, VIVO Conference, and CRIS Conference
- Delivering three webinars focused on DuraCloud, VIVO and the 2.5% Commitment: Investing in Open
- Formalizing plans to include entities support in DSpace 7 (waiting on DSpace Steering communication coming soon)
We are delighted to share news of these initiatives and our team looks forward to continuing to support projects and advance services to help ensure that current and future generations have access to our collective digital heritage. . You may be interested in participating in a new 3-4 month task force initiated by ORCiD aimed at gathering input on repository community needs regarding ORCID and on a set of recommendations for supporting ORCID in repository platforms. More information here.
With many thanks for your support and participation.
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