Dear Friends,
Conversations with you, our members and strategic partners as part of the intent to merge with LYRASIS resulted in boths Boards of Directors voting unanimously to complete the merger. I am pleased to report that our organizations will officially merge by July 1, 2019 to create 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 invitations to Leaders Forums and access to Catalyst Fund for R&D/Innovation work. Members also have access to the LYR Community Impact Fund to accelerate community-supported projects.
Annual project overhead costs will be reduced and community control/governance of projects will be unchanged
Users 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.
Warm regards,
Erin Tripp
Executive Director
A Members-Only Summit
Our annual Member Summit will be held on April 10, 2019 in St. Louis. A reception, following the CNI Spring Member Meeting, will be held on April 9th. Invitations will be sent to representatives of each member organization the first week of February.
Where We'll Be
LDCX Fedora Workshop, Palo Alto, CA, March 25-27, David Wilcox
DuraSpace Summit at CNI, St. Louis, MO, April 10, Erin Tripp, David Wilcox, Andrew Woods, Valorie Hollister, Carol Minton Morris, Michele Mennielli
DSpace Anwendertreffen, Bamberg, Germany, April 11-12, Michele Mennielli
euroCRIS Membership Meeting, Espoo/Helsinki, May 27-29, Michele Mennielli
