2026-02-25 DSpace Leadership Group Meeting

Date

25 Feb 2026 11:00 am-1:00 pm EST (Eastern Standard Time)

Zoom:  Link in calendar invite

Leadership Group Members

• Bridget Almas Lyrasis* (Ex-officio, Lyrasis seat)
• Anne Aubert, Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN
• Pascal-Nicolas Becker The Library Code*
• Isabel Bernal Spanish National Research Council CSIC 
  
• Andrea Bollini 4Science* 
• Bill Branan Johns Hopkins University
• Kimberly Chapman University of Arizona Libraries
• Maggie Dickson  Duke University
• Lieven Droogmans Atmire*
• Kent Gerber University of Minnesota†
• John Gostick University of Cambridge
• Gültekin Gürdal Izmir Institute of Technology**
• Barbara Hirschmann ETH Zurich
• Jyrki Ilva National Library of Finland
• Erica Johns (Vice Chair) Cornell University*
• Colin Lukens Harvard Library**
• Lautaro Matas  LA Referencia***
  
• Rachel Molina Indiana University Indianapolis
• Erik Moore (Chair) University of Minnesota*
• Kristi Park Texas Digital Library*
• Małgorzata Paszkowska PCG Academia
• Beate Rajski DSpace-Konsortium Deutschland
• Julien Sicot EPFL
• Paschal Ssemaganda World Bank Group
• Carolyn Sullivan University of Ottawa
• Ianthe Sutherland University of Edinburgh
• Maureen Walsh, The Ohio State University Libraries*

DSpace staff attendees

• Tim Donohue 
• Holger Lenz 
• Michele Mennielli 

The  represents who will be taking notes for a given meeting. It rotates after each meeting to the next person in the attendee list.

* Members of DSpace Steering Group

** Community At Large Representative

*** Ex-officio member nominated by the Leadership Group as representative of the community at large. Ex-officio members do not have voting rights

† DSpace Community Advisory Team (DCAT) Chair, ex-officio, non-voting 

Agenda

Notes

Welcome

• First leadership meeting of new leadership year
• Introduction of Lia Eggleston - DSpace Technical Support Engineer
• Lia joined DSpace staff around a month ago
• Will be helping Tim with user requests and support
• Meeting many people across the community
• Based in Cambridge, Ma
• Currently working with the team on v10 release

Consent Agenda

• Leadership group reviewed
• No comments or discussion

Q2 Financials

• Holger shared and reviewed Statement of Financial Position and Statement of Financial Activity as of Dec 2025
• We're at the half-way point of the fiscal year
• DSpace is financially positive to budget for the year
• Higher than expected interest earnings
• Revenue slightly under budget
• Under budget across several expenses
• CST Growth Fund is broken out
• Reserve Fund has grown considerably, as planned

DSpace & DSpace-CRIS Merger

• A merger management team has been established and has already met 3 times since January
• This team will be in place for 2 years, to cover both the 10 and 11 releases
• The next meeting of this group is tomorrow
• Purpose is planning strategies for moving code from DSpace-CRIS to DSpace
• Attempting to streamline the code review process
• Could use more help with code review process
• Meeting notes are public (linked in agenda)
• Focus for now is what can be included in to 10.0 release
• Need help across a number of initiatives
• Service providers, particularly 4Science has been creating PRs. PCG Academia has also been assisting with feature porting and Atmire has been helping to review and merge all of these changes.
• Merger roadmap project - Separate JIRA project
• 3 things merged already, these are ready to go for 10.0 release
• 5 other PRs planned for 10.0
• The 10.0 new feature deadline has passed
• In the process of reviewing the current set of PRs for inclusion in 10.0
• New JIRA board highlights what is in process and what is yet to come as well as who is assigned to specific work
• Attempting to capture the steps needed to transition capabilities from DSpace-CRIS to DSpace
• Timeline question: Does plan indicate the ability to complete merger by v11?
• Yes, the planning on the boards indicates the ability to complete by v11
• Lots of work has been done already
• Work on migration for 11 will be able to continue even as version 10 is being wrapped up
• Appear to be on track to complete on schedule
• Expectations for v10?
• Not just infrastructure, quite a few feature updates
• Lots of community-built features are under review now
• We'll know for sure what features will be in 10 when test-a-thon starts
• Already have audit-trail feature to audit all changes to items in DSpace
• From DSpace-CRIS comes the ability to use custom URLs for any item (includes Person, Article, Item, etc)
• More to come as reviews are completed, for example improved item editing, sharing with social networks
• Pascal: Attempting to get in an auto-complete feature for submission forms (there were many requests for this)
• Feedback and questions are welcome

DSpace Bylaws Draft

• DSpace Governance Working Group has created a draft update to DSpace program Bylaws
• Draft shared with Leadership on Jan 27
• Overview and discussion of comments and changes
• Ordering of descriptions: Leadership placed before steering
• Several changes are merely to ensure wording is consistent and remove repetition
• Operating manuals currently being drafted (Steering and Leadership manuals) - Bylaws are the priority
• Closed meetings: More description of these will be in the operating manuals
• Emeritus members: Allowable membership category for leadership, will be addressed in leadership operating manual
• DSpace program officers are chair and vice-chair of Steering and Leadership, elected by Leadership. This is not DSpace program staff.
• Bylaws acting as its own glossary by defining terms as they are used
• Working Groups terminology changed to Committees and Other Groups
• Automatic leadership seats on leadership can apply within the calendar year
• Committers Group is a standing group with no defined term
• Committer Group Chair is a newly defined role to be identified by Steering. This is currently Tim, but changes are intended to identify this role even in the scenario where there is not a current DSpace Tech Lead or there is a reason for the Chair to not be the Tech Lead.
• DCAT is also identified as a standing group with no defined term
• Added responsibility of leadership to define membership tiers
• Dates will be updated and included on final documents
• Leadership vote on accepting updated Bylaws
• Time will be available for review
• Comment: May be difficult to vote on Bylaws without seeing the completed operating manuals.
• This was discussed in Steering
• Waiting for operating manuals may push the vote beyond this fiscal year
• There is the potential for the creation of operating manuals to result in further changes to ByLaws, so additional review of this
• Discussion about emeritus member involvement
  • https://wiki.lyrasis.org/display/DSPACE/DSpace+Leadership+Group
• Have emeritus members in Committers Group, they have established trust already.
• The wiki currently includes reference to emeritus members in leadership
• ByLaws are attempting to catch up with current practice
• Decision: In Article 2 Section 2.2, remove the mention of emeritus members as ex officio membership covers the same need
• Working group will revise based on this discussion
• Vote will be called prior to the next Steering Group meeting in March

Development Fund

• Opportunity to revisit this as a Leadership Group and talk about current priorities for paid development related to DSpace 10 and 11 and as part of future work
• Development Fund documentation: https://wiki.lyrasis.org/display/DSPACE/Announcement%3A+DSpace+Development+Fund
• In the past, Development Fund was used to consider accessibility improvements required to meet standards
• This was an intentionally very targeted activity
• Using the development fund for the merger may be a more difficult ask, as it's not helping institutions meet specific local needs
• The development fund will include a little over $4000 after the completion of a few contracts that are still pending for accessibility
• There has not been formal campaign for merger development funding
• There was a very targeted funding campaign for DSpace 7
• For DSpace 10 and 11, the biggest need is for code review and testing. This would be the best way to speed up the process. We don't actually need new code (that is already coming in).
• This probably wouldn't be the most effective focus of an institutional pitch. Focus more on the features that the code review is expected to enable.
• The Development Fund has been a useful way for some institutions to contribute unspent funds at the end of a fiscal year
• There are some features that have not been claimed yet
• Perhaps the pitch is about supporting the merger more broadly
• Specific feature focus could be ORCID certification process
• The pitch will need to be refined to ensure it resonates with institutional leadership
• DSpace 25th anniversary will be celebrated in 2027. This may be a launching point for a funding campaign.

Other Business

• North American User Group in Sept 28-30 at Harvard
• Call for proposals coming soon
• https://wiki.lyrasis.org/display/DSPACE/North+American+User+Group
• PCG event in May 2026 - National user group meeting in Europe planning to create a round table to leverage community to build support for the work of these groups. Anyone interested in participating in this, please contact Malgorzata directly.
• DSpace 25th anniversary in 2027 - more discussion about this in Steering is expected