Dear Friends,
Conversations with It was with great pleasure and excitement that we announced DuraSpace will officially merge with LYRASIS by July 1, 2019! Throughout the intent to merge process we spoke with, and received positive feedback from you, our valued members and strategic partners as part of the intent to merge with LYRASIS resulted in boths Boards of Directors voting . With your essential support the Board of Directors voted unanimously to complete the merger . I am pleased to report that our organizations will officially merge by July 1, 2019 to create thus creating one dynamic organization—an on-ramp to a worldwide collaborative community: http://bit. ly/2T3LdUm
What follows is recycled from last month–perhaps weave in panel description coming up at the Summit? I have added information from Michele's talking points.
Evolution of the LYRASIS + DuraSpace Merger
Our organizations are increasingly working toward similar strategic goals. We don’t want to compete for a limited pool of funding and staff resources. We also feel strongly we can have a greater impact in our field by amplifying our collective tech voice together than we can apart.
Over the last 2-3 years, our missions, goals, and cultures have purposefully grown closer together. For example, the It Takes a Village (ITAV) project created an opportunity for DuraSpace and LYRASIS to collaborate. ITAV provided leadership and created new understanding of the needs and potential models for support of open source software (OSS). LYRASIS’ experience with the ArchivesSpace and CollectionSpace communities and DuraSpace’s experience with DSpace, Fedora, and VIVO contributed to the ITAV outcomes and bolstered the body of knowledge around supporting open technologies and community governance.
In addition, both organizations have been working on innovation and thought leadership initiatives and wish to formalize, grow, and spread these efforts internationally. We feel we can do that through joint investments in the new LYRASIS Leaders Circle and Catalyst Fund that will convene our members internationally, promote sharing ideas and use cases, and fuel collaboration on Research and Development, and prototyping to test ideas and eventually turn them into solutions for our members to use.
It is also clear, based on the consolidations in the for-profit space serving our communities, that we will be stronger and more sustainable together, giving us a larger staff plus investment dollars to assess and create viable alternatives to proprietary products in a not-for-profit environment with a large portfolio of community supported open solutions.
Other evolutionary considerations based on feedback from our communities are based on the success of our current open source technologies. Community needs for flexible supports are increasing. In order to bolster our efforts to compete we require a nimble community home for projects accompanied with staff expertise and a mature community development process.
Merger Highlights for Our Members
Member benefits are increasing in the first year of transition (2019-2020). Current membership pricing will not change. DuraSpace Members will be given free Leaders Circle membership for the first year to access LYRASIS membership benefits. Including an Our annual Membership campaign will kick off in April! We’re excited that our members will receive additional benefits as a result of the merger. While all existing member benefits will remain, during the first year of the merger our members will receive membership to the LYRASIS Leaders Circle, invitations to Leaders Forums and access to Catalyst Fund for R&D/Innovation work. Members also have access to the LYR research and development or prototyping projects. Our programs will also have access to the LYRASIS Community Impact Fund to accelerate community-supported projects.Annual project overhead costs will be reduced and community control/governance of projects will be unchangedUsers will have opportunities to attend more events internationally including workshops, trainings and user groups. Projects will benefit from more investment in R&D and funds derived from hosting services will be invested in R&D or community or other strategic initiative.
As always, thank you for your continued support of our merger with LYRASIS and other initiatives aimed at providing enduring access to the world’s digital heritage.I DuraSpace. I look forward to seeing some many of you next month at the Member Summit next month. Until then please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions or feedback!
Warm regards,
Erin Tripp
Executive Director
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