This is the May 2019 edition of the Fedora Newsletter. This newsletter summarizes the most significant activities within the Fedora community over the last month.

Call for Action

Fedora is designed, built, used, and supported by the community. An easy and important way that you can contribute to the effort is by helping resolve outstanding bugs. If you have an interest in gaining a better understanding of the Fedora code base, or a specific interest in any of these bugs, please add a comment to a ticket and we can work together to move your interest forward.

Register Your Repository

Is your repository listed in the DuraSpace registry? Help us maintain reliable information on the community of Fedora users around the world by registering your repository today. You can also request an update to an existing entry by selecting your entry and filling out the online form.

Membership

Fedora is funded entirely through the contributions of DuraSpace members that allocate their annual funding to Fedora. This year's membership campaign has a goal of raising $500,000 to fund staff to work on Fedora and provide technical leadership, direct strategic planning, organize community outreach, and coordinate timely software releases. Membership also provides opportunities to participate in project governance and influence the direction of the software. If your institution is not yet a member of DuraSpace in support of Fedora, please join us today!

Upgrades

We are pleased to announce that Johns Hopkins University Libraries has upgraded from Gold to Platinum membership in support of Fedora. Johns Hopkins has been a longtime supporter of DuraSpace and Fedora, including engagement on the Fedora Committers team (Aaron Birkland, Senior Software Engineer) and the Fedora Leadership Group (Sayeed Choudhury, Associate Dean for Research Data Management).

Annual Report

The 2018 Fedora annual report is now available. This report highlights the accomplishments of the Fedora project and community over the past year, including international membership growth and the release of Fedora 5.0. The report also summarizes the roadmap for 2019.

Fedora Camp in Atlanta

You are invited to join experienced trainers at Fedora Camp to be held May 20-22 at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Fedora Camp, hosted by Emory University Libraries, offers everyone a chance to dive in and learn all about Fedora. Training will begin with the basics and build toward more advanced concepts–no prior Fedora experience is required. Participants can expect to come away with a deep dive Fedora learning experience coupled with multiple opportunities for applying hands-on techniques working with experienced trainers and Fedora gurus.

Previous Fedora Camps include the inaugural camp held at Duke University, the West Coast camp at CalTech, NYC camp at Columbia U, Texas camp at UT Austin, and NASA Camp at Goddard Space Flight Center. The camp curriculum will provide a comprehensive overview of Fedora by exploring such topics as:

Core & Integrated features
Data modeling and linked data
Samvera and Islandora
Migrating to Fedora
Deploying Fedora in production
Preservation Services

The curriculum will be delivered by a knowledgeable team of instructors from the Fedora community including, David Wilcox, Fedora Product Manager, Andrew Woods and Danny Bernstein, Fedora Technical Leads, and Jared Whiklo from the University of Manitoba.

View a sample agenda.

Register today and join us in Atlanta!

Designing a Migration Path Grant Update

The Designing a Migration Path grant work continued in March and April with the completion of several deliverables:

These documents provide context on the current state of Fedora 3.x usage and migration tools, along with reviews of the Fedora API and the Oxford Common File Layout in terms of their potential impact on migrations.

The grant team also sent out a survey to the community, which closed on May 8 with 111 responses. These responses will be analyzed and compiled in a report along with recommendations. Keep an eye on this newsletter for monthly updates on our progress.

Community-driven Activity

Fedora at the University of Texas at Austin

The University of Texas at Austin continues to be very active in the Fedora Community. Dustin Slater, Assistant Director of Information Technology at UT Libraries, is a member of the Fedora Leadership Group. His team has developed a Digital Asset Management System based on Islandora and Fedora, and they are also enhancing their Latin American Digital Initiatives project using Islandora 8 (which implements Fedora 5.0). Additionally, UT Austin hosted the most recent South Central States Fedora User Group meeting - this group meets regularly to collaborate on Fedora-related initiatives. Read more online.

Oxford Common File Layout

A 0.2 (Alpha) release of the OCFL spec is available for review. You are invited to provide feedback, which will be discussed on future community calls.

The most recent OCFL community call took place on Wednesday, May 8. Notes and audio are available online. This call included updates from the community and a discussion about unresolved issues leading up to the beta release.

Please join the ocfl-community mailing list for further updates.

Conferences and events

In an attempt to simplify the task of keeping up with Fedora-related meetings and events, a Fedora calendar is available to the community as HTML and iCal .

If you have not already joined the fedora-project Slack workspace please start by visiting the self-registration form. Come join the conversation!

Upcoming Events

Open Repositories

The annual Open Repositories conference will take place June 10-13 in Hamburg, Germany. The program includes many Fedora-related workshops, presentations, and panels, and the event will be followed by a Fedora User Group meeting that all are welcome to attend. Please register in advance for the conference.

Past Events

CNI

Representatives from CNI member organizations gather twice annually to explore new technologies, content, and applications; to further collaboration; to analyze technology policy issues, and to catalyze the development and deployment of new projects. The CNI Spring Membership Meeting took place April 8-9 in St. Louis, MO. The agenda included a panel session on collaboratively developing Fedora's strategic plan, a panel on the Oxford Common File Layout, an update on Islandora 8, and many other interesting project breakouts. Video recordings of some sessions, including the excellent opening and closing keynotes, are also available.

ACRL

The ACRL conference took place April 10-13 in Cleveland, OH. Fedora Tech Lead Danny Bernstein delivered an introductory Fedora workshop at the conference on Friday, April 12. Slides from the workshop are available online.

DC Area Fedora Users Meeting

The most recent meeting of the DC Area Fedora Users Group took place May 7-8 at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, MD. The event was well-attended, with community updates and discussions on the first day and a hackathon on the second day. Presentations and notes are available on the wiki.

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2019-05 Fedora Newsletter