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Dear Friends,
Happy New Year! D
DuraSpace welcomes new leadership to our Board of Directors this spring. After serving for several years on the Board, and for three years on the Executive Group, Laura Wood, Associate University Librarian for Research and Education at Harvard Library, is stepping down from her post as Board President. To fill this vacancy the Board has approved the following slate: Tyler Walters, Dean, University Libraries and Professor, Virginia Tech, will serve as President, Tom Cramer, Assistant University Librarian and Director, Digital Library Systems & Services Chief Technology Strategist Stanford University Libraries, and Heather Joseph, Executive Director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), will remain in their current positions as Vice President and Secretary, respectively, and Rob Cartolano, Associate Vice President for Digital Programs and Technology Services for Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, will serve as Treasurer to fill the position vacated by Tyler. Laura will remain on the Board through the spring. (Read announcement here).
Increasing interoperability between and among technology systems in use by many institutions which have strategic interests in preserving and sharing the scholarly record remains high among most institutions' technical priorities. This year DuraSpace aims to increase collaboration across its open source platforms to "break down siloes" and lead the way towards increased technical interoperability in service to our community.
Many thanks to our members who renewed their membership for 2017 and to those who have joined DuraSpace for the first time as new members. We look forward to welcoming our members to seeing you at the DuraSpace Member Summit which will be held April 10-11 in San Diego prior to the CNI Spring Member Meeting. We look forward also hope to seeing you there and also see you on the road at conferences and meetings this spring. See "Where We'll Be" below.
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Our Annual Member Summit will take place April 10 and 11 in San Diego, California. Invitations have been sent to representatives of each member organization. If you received an invitation we encourage you to kindly RSVP by March 12th. We encourage our Platinum and Gold members to send two representatives from their institution and invite our Silver and Bronze members to send one representative. If you wish to send someone in your place please RSVP "no" and you'll be prompted to enter the name and email of who you'd like us to invite in your place. Our two-day summit will include a presentation of the 2017-2018 DuraSpace Strategic Summary, highlighting key 2017 achievements and priorities for the year ahead including emerging projects, partnerships, and programs, and updates from leaders . Leaders of our community open source projects, DSpace, Fedora and VIVO will give updates keeping members up-to-date current on each project's status, accomplishments, and goals. A reception will follow the first day offering an opportunity to connect socially with DuraSpace staff and members over light refreshments. Day two will provide multiple opportunities for small and large group discussions to hear from you about how DuraSpace can help you achieve your key priorities. Each open source project will hold their own meeting as well, organized by Project Steering Groups, to discuss goals, objectives, and resources for 2018.
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