Tuesday – Duraspace Board Meeting

Wednesday – Summit Day 1

Laura Wood of Tufts, opened by the Summit by thanking Duraspace for another fine year and for its leadership and introduced the concept of the merger as one of complimentary strengths.  debra hanken kurtz followed, along with Robert Miller of Lyrasis, discussing the merger and taking questions.  The projects then each presented their current work and their plans for the coming year.  Dean B. Krafft and Mike Conlon presented for VIVO.  Their presentation can be found in Figshare here.

Following the presentations, the tables were tasked as breakouts to consider two questions: 1) What should be preserved in a possible merger? and 2) what should be pursued in a possible merger?  A vigorous conversation ensued.  Following the breakout, Tyler Walters of Virginia Tech gave a keynote talk on the work of SHARE in assembling research events from around the world.  VIVO can provide events to SHARE through the SHARE Harvester for VIVO.  The day ended with a cocktail reception.  Many members of the VIVO Leadership Group and Steering Group were in attendance.

Thursday – Summit Day 2

The day began before the Summit with a meeting of the VIVO and Fedora attendees to discuss the possibility of VIVO/Fedora integration.  Three use cases emerged: 1) A faculty member uses a Fedora front-end (Hydra-based or other) to enter a work into a repository.  The work is then represented on the faculty member's profile automatically with links to the content in the repository.  2) The faculty member uses VIVO to add a work to their profile.  The work is automatically stored in Fedora and represented on the VIVO profile of the faculty member.  3) A faculty member leaves the university.  How can the faculty member's profile be archived in a repository?

The Summit then began with a recap of the table breakout discussions of the previous day.  How will the merger benefit the projects?  Presumably through Lyrasis' financial strength, reach (4,000 user sites) and operational best practices.  Will project autonomy be preserved?  Yes, Duraspace is a leader in community-supported open source software for the academy.  The merger is intended to strengthen this position.  How will branding/naming be addressed in the merger?  This is under active discussion.  The goal is to strengthen all activities of the resulting organization.

Final Thoughts

This was my third Duraspace Summit meeting.  It is one of the best meetings of the year – lots of good idea, lots of good people.  The Summit is a members meeting.  If you are a VIVO member, please plan to attend the Summit next year.  If you are not a member, please consider becoming a member, and plan to attend the Summit.  The Summit is chance to discuss the future of scholarship and of VIVO, and to meet and discuss these issues withe other VIVO project.  I hope to see you at the Summit next year.