Date

19 Nov 2025 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*
• Collin 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

Introduction of all members

Welcome to the new Leadership members.

Consent Agenda    

No issues raised.

Interoperability Project presentation

Bridget gave an overview of the interoperability Project: it’s a 3-year project to develop technical specifications for sustainable, out-of-the-box integrations – not just prototypes- that the community really wants.

Over to Jessica Farrell, Lyrasis consultant, who will be leading the development of the specifications for the community. Focus will be mainly on open source integrations and widespread use cases.

Dspace to be used in at least one integration, as well as other Lyrasis technologies. Other applications can be supported, too.

Timeline of the Project spanning from December, with a draft of the specifications for functional requirements between February and May of next year.  Proposals can range from security integrations, APIs, and interfaces, data exchange, etc.

Jess will survey several DSpace user groups (including national user groups) in December, and meetings with service providers will also be planned.

The group discussed the opportunity for a proposal for integration between Dspace and Slack, https://wiki.lyrasis.org/display/DSPACE/Slack.

Overview of DSpace's 2025-26 Q1 Financial Report

Bridget gives a brief overview of the 2025 financial statement. 

Main highlights of the report:

• Increased reserve fund in October
• Membership line is more than expected
• Interest income is also higher than expected
• Service providers fees are a bit lower than expected (because of many contributions made) Lower expenses than expected (money budgeted for a position for support engineer not yet filled)
• Variances on the whole are not a concern. Corrections in the next quarter are expected

DSpace & DSpace-CRIS Potential Merger    

Presentation of Summary and Highlights  by Tim

• Questions from the floor:
• Conflict resolution process of the commiters group
• Communications plan in the works for community and the socialization of the merger
• Code reviews process and capacity, and whether LOM technologies could be a useful resource here, with mixed feelings in Leadership.
• Impact on DCAT testathons: a refresh will be needed for versions 10 and 11, together with more preparation to design tests and get the demo server ready. A three-week testathon is recommended, and the demo server will be more like DSPACE CRIS.
• Need for more detailed documentation for DSPACE CRIS. It has already been moved to Confluence, and the merger management team will be charged with making sure that documentation cleanup and detailing will be accomplished in due time.

Result of vote by leadership:

• 21 voted in favor of the merger
• 0 abstentions
• 0 nay votes

The merger is officially approved and will begin with DSpace 10.

Lyrasis to get announcement ready in the next days.

Org Home Cost rate and SLA:

Bridget: A proposal to be sent to Leadership for a new fee cost structure model.  Very detailed cost analysis of all Lyrasis programmes and technologies. Cost structure model to get done when next fiscal year will start.

The new model will facilitate growth and responsable budgeting. Goal: Operating the organizational home at cost. Cost transparent and flexible model.

Proposal: rate structure to take into account all programmes characteristics, life cycles.  New cost model is neutral rate, all in one and leads to cost reduction.

In the new model reconciliation of actual expenses has to be done at the end of the year to have the real picture.

Overview of what’s new in the proposed service level agreement (SLA): same services as always been, but more articulation about their scope and Lyrasis' responsibility.  Also language clarification around non profit in the service level agreement

End of meeting

The next Leadership Meeting takes place on February 25, 2026, at 16:00 UTC (11 am EST, 17:00 CET).

Meeting adjourned.