Poster deadline extended.  There's still time for you to submit a poster to VIVO 2016!  This is a great opportunity for you to share your work with the VIVO community. The deadline for poster submissions has been extended to May 23.  See http://vivoconference.org

Conference registration open.  And, by the way, conference registration is open.  Our keynotes this year are Sören Auer and Kaitlyn Thaney.  Should be a fantastic meeting in Denver, August 17-19.  Take advantage of early-bird registration rates.   http://vivoconference.org

LYRASIS and DuraSpace Announce Dissolution of "Intent to Merge".  After several months of due diligence, the boards of Lyrasis and Duraspace have dissolved the intent to merge.  The full text of the press release can be found here:  http://duraspace.org/articles/2879.  As a full participant in the process, I believe the result is a good one for our communities.  I look forward to strong years ahead.

Duraspace Retreat.  Mike Conlon and Graham Triggs attended a bi-annual Duraspace retreat in White Plains Georgia, May 9-12.  We had an opportunity to review the past six months and plan for the next six months with the rest of the Duraspace crew.  Many people help with VIVO.  debra hanken kurtz and Jonathan Markow are heavily involved – attending our meetings, helping with membership, strategy, and governance, and introducing us to people across the community.  Valorie Hollister handles the money.  Kristi Searle manages events and maintains our contacts.  Carol Minton Morris organizes communications and branding strategy.  The other Duraspace projects and services were represented by their managers and technical leads – David Wilcox and Andrew Woods for Fedora,  Tim Donohue for Dspace, Carissa SmithBill Branan and Danny Bernstein for Duraspace services including DuraCloud and Dspace Direct. Together, Duraspace seeks to enable the preservation of digital assets in scholarship and cultural heritage.  It's a great group of people who care about open source, and the missions of our institutions.

Use of the VIVO email lists.  The VIVO email lists – vivo-community@googlegroups.com and vivo-tech@googlegroups.com are for the use of the VIVO community.  "VIVO" is now a common trade name – there are many VIVO's around the world.  Our VIVO, this VIVO, the VIVO we participate in regarding open source, and representation of scholarship, is often confused with telecommunication companies, and nongovernmental organizations.  Our email lists are open – anyone can subscribe, and any subscriber can post.  This seems appropriate for an open source community.  The consequence of this openness is that occasionally someone will join the list and post something that is not appropriate for us.  This happened recently.  In each case, I responded to the poster privately, explaining the purpose of the list and the nature of our community.  I then unsubscribed the poster.  Our lists serve as open forums for the exchange of ideas about VIVO – its software, its ontologies, and its use in scholarship.

Apps and Tools call this Thursday. The Apps and Tools Interest Group will have its call this Thursday at 1 PM US Eastern time.  All are invited to hear about tools and applications regarding VIVO.

See OpenVIVO at Open Repositories.  Graham Triggs and I will be at Open Repositories, Trinity College, Dublin, June 13-16.  Stop by the OpenVIVO poster.  We'd love to meet you!

Go VIVO!

Mike

Mike Conlon
VIVO Project Director