LYRASIS and DuraSpace Announce Merger of Two Organizations is Complete

From an Announcement:

LYRASIS and DuraSpace are pleased to announce the merger of their two leading 501(c)(3) not-for-profits was completed on July 1, 2019, establishing one of the largest global technology and services membership organizations for research and collections holding institutions worldwide. Members will participate in developing new scalable technologies, shared innovation opportunities, and high-value, fairly priced services across the global landscape of academic and public libraries, scholarly research, archives, museums, and galleries.

LYRASIS will remain the parent organization and legal entity. The governance model will continue to be a Board that is 50% member elected and 50% appointed. The merger will accelerate collaboration, development, and implementation of platforms that will benefit our 1,700+ members.

Robert Miller, CEO of LYRASIS, says of the merger, “Our Boards, our memberships, and our teams are thrilled with this merger. In addition to the existing programs and services LYRASIS has for its members, this merger brings 3 respected community supported projects to the 7 programs that LYRASIS is organizationally invested in. We firmly believe that by having 10 such programs under one roof, the combined 1,700+ members and 5,000+ institutional users will see the benefits of scale, experience lower risk, see higher returns on innovation, and see an acceleration of implemented ideas. As part of this, LYRASIS is putting $1.2M of development monies into 5 key areas to support activities related to the merger.”

Joe Lucia, LYRASIS Board Chair says, “LYRASIS and DuraSpace are enterprises that each embody a rare combination of idealism and pragmatism for the ways they engage their professional communities in collaboration to support the scientific and cultural memory commitments of archives, libraries, and museums. This merger will establish LYRASIS as a clear leader in convening those communities around shared open source solutions to address their common challenges.”

The DuraSpace brand, staff of DSpace, Fedora, and VIVO have transitioned to the new DuraSpace Community Supported Programs (DCSP) Division of LYRASIS. DuraSpace hosted services (DuraCloud, DSpaceDirect, and ArchivesDirect) will now be part of the LYRASIS Digital Technologies Division.

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