2025-07-18 Board Meeting Agenda & Minutes

Attendees

@Karen Cariani

@Aaron Collier - regrets

@Kirsten Leonard

@Kate Lynch

@Emily Lynema (Deactivated)

@Alicia Morris

@Robin Ruggaber

@david.schober - regrets

@Paul Walk

Ex-officio:

@Heather Greer Klein

Rob Kaufman (for first discussion)

Agenda & Notes

• Hyku fundraising update (with Rob)

  • Hyku maintenance fundraising - where we are, what comes next, what we can do with what has been raised so far

  • Raised 25% of what we were asking for, no surprise with current funding situation and terrible uncertainty

  • Need to get Hyku to a supported Rails version; will stagnate without moving to current Rails and Hyrax

  • Is there a donor that we could approach about investment, or matching funds? This would be a longer sustainability effort, and would be well-focused on. Seed money to a development fund. Dollars go further in open source.

  • Rob will match funds in donation of his time. Will do a last push to Hyku users to ask for additional funds.

  • Timeline: will get done in late August/early September. Get to where we can in the next 30 days.

  • (Rob’s portion ended and he left the meeting, discussion continued)

  • How do we prevent having this discussion next time, and how do we prepare to have these funds in place for the next large maintenance work? We have the community developer still getting trained up, and committed time from them next year, which should prioritize this kind of maintenance (ie Rails upgrade).

  • We can invest now with this plan in place, and see how our current planning plays out for next year.

  • Board voted to contribute $2,000 to the effort.

  • Will plan in the budget for next year to include seed funds for development funds for the platforms, including tools like Bulkrax.
    
    

• Next steps for an AI working group

  • Want to clearly define our goal. One thing could be defining an AI-based metadata creation tool. About not a really good feature, but feature parity with the market. Could develop that rapidly, and then leave it to the users. The other work, like what Northwestern is doing for search, RAG is something very different and we don’t want to confuse the two.

  • The most interest seems to be in helping a staff member do more metadata work than they could do on their own. This is attracting to JSTOR’s solution.

  • In terms of next steps: will talk to Nic Don about starting a well-defined working group around the metadata assistance use case. Other working groups could be created to explore other aspects.
    
    

• Accessibility WG/testing update

  • Met this week, and VPATs coming along well. Princeton is funding live work via Fable for Hyrax and Hyku. One session in August, one in September.

  • Might increase the scope to do an environmental scan for free accessibility tools to recommend to the community.

  • Slides and notes from accessibility breakout at Samvera Virtual Connect 2024, where some [mostly free] tools were shared

  • Code4Lib 2025 presentation with lots of free tools (see last 3 slides of this presentation)
    
    
    

• GitHub permissions WG work update

  • https://samvera.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/samvera/pages/3265331201

  • Working on defining owners, and depreciation of core components
    
    
    

• Checking in on Board priorities

  • More unified approach to demos/sandboxes across the platforms

    • Going well with demo sites for every platform

  • organizing user guides/toolboxes/scaffolding to set new implementers up for success

    • Documentation sprints are making great progress

  • Connect to international consortia and repository standards

    • Starting with the COAR Notify work, which begins in August

  • Next Hyrax Tech Lead - how do we fill this role?

    • Will be bringing this to every Partner call - what do we need to do to make this role workable for someone for next year
      
      

• Community Diagrams

  • New tech stack diagram

    • This is wonderful!

    • Reflects the most recent versions of Hyrax/Hyku; include those version numbers in promotion of the stack

    • Clarify that this is the Hyrax and Hyku stack. Avalon has a different stack and could develop another diagram specific to Avalon as well

  • Diagram for community structure/relationships is next

    • have a goal to define what we know and don’t and what needs to be clear vs remain flexible
      
      

• Samvera Connect 2025 update

  • Waiting on OASIS to set up Stripe account to accept ticket sales

  • CFP Deadline extended to 28th
    
    

• Board member/community leadership cross-meeting participation work

  • IWe will invite POs and Tech Leads to the August meeting. No need to present; they can just participate in a conversation about what they have experienced, if the board can help, and make sure they have support for things.
    
    

• Other updates

  • finance subcommittee call next Friday

  • DCE training contract is signed, 4 are registered, +2 from U Pittsburgh, will keep promoting but it is a great group so far

  • PALCI MOU addendum signed by OASIS

  • Partners invoicing

  • Potential Partners check-in
    
    

• Date of next Board meeting: August 15th