The Duraspace Summit.  Each year, Duraspace holds a summit meeting of its members.  This year, the meeting is March 16-17 in Washington DC at the Cosmos Club.  Members of Duraspace and the Duraspace projects – Fedora, DSpace, and VIVO – gather to discuss issues related to future of scholarship, its representation and preservation. VIVO members will discuss strategic direction and growing VIVO adoption and membership. Graham Triggs and I will be there.  Dean B. Krafft and I will present an update on VIVO.  The attendees will hear a keynote by Tyler Walters of the Virginia Tech Libraries.  The summit is a great opportunity to meet supporters of VIVO and consider its future.  if you are a member and have not attended this meeting, I can not recommend it highly enough.  The two half-days are structured for interaction and action.  If you are a member, I hope to see you at the summit!  If you are not a member, I hope you will consider becoming a member and joining us at the summit next year.  Please see http://vivoweb.org/membership for more information.

New at the VIVO Conference this year.  This year, the conference is offering opportunities for institutional sponsors to support students and others to attend the conference through registration waivers.  Would you like to support attendance at the conference and promote your institution at the same time?  Consider institutional sponsorship of the VIVO conference.  See VIVO Conference Sponsorship Prospectus for this opportunity to sponsor the conference, help people attend, and promote your institution.

The VIVO Strategic Plan.  Back in December of 2014, VIVO finalized a two year strategic plan.  See VIVO Strategic Plan 2015-2016. The plan helps us make good choices about moving the project forward.  As times change, and the community changes, the needs of the community change.  The two year plan has served us well.  It is time to update the plan for 2017-2018.  The strategic planning process will begin at the summit with the members and the leadership group.  Dean B. Krafft will lead a discussion of issues related to VIVO's future.  From there, we will continue the discussion in our interest groups, at our meetings, at the conference, and in final planning this fall.  By December we will have a final draft for review by the community and the governance groups.  And by January of 2017 we will be operating under a new plan.  You may wish to review the strategic plan to prepare for these conversations.  We hope to hear from you!

Notes on the George Washington University implementation. Justin Littman of GWU has written a great summary of the implementation of VIVO at the George Washington University, known as GW Expert Finder.  Justin addresses issues common to VIVO implementations.  Highly recommended.

Speaking of Implementation, the Implementation Interest Group call is this Thursday. New to VIVO?  Working on an implementation?  Where will you get data?  Who will be in your VIVO?  What tools will you use?  What policies will apply?  Can others use your data?  These and many other questions about VIVO implementations are addressed on the Implementation Interest Group calls.  The group will have a call this Thursday at 1 PM Eastern US time.  This is a great call for those new to VIVO.  Contact Paul Albert for more info.

Go VIVO!

Mike

Mike Conlon
VIVO Project Director