July 14th, 2020

8-9 AM Pacific | 10-11 AM Central | 11 AM - 12 PM Eastern | 4-5 PM BST

Standing Zoom link: https://stanford.zoom.us/s/393158590?pwd=NTBFc3cwbDc3K1NKWGRxN1Ryb2p0QT09

Attendees:

Carolyn Caizzi (Northwestern University)
Jon Dunn (Indiana University)
Hannah Frost (Stanford University) (facilitator)
Richard Green (Samvera Operations Adviser, co-facilitator)
Kevin Kochanski (Notch8)
Simeon Warner (Cornell University)

Agenda and notes - COPIED/EDITED FROM JUNE

Review to-do's from June meeting
- Group discussed current state of income from this year's fundraising drive amongst Partners. Slightly more than 50% of hoped-for income in as at 10th June. RG will request a further update from Lyrasis in time to inform our next call. – Received from Lyrasis on July 7
  - Prepare for follow up on unpaid invoices?
    Only $10k from UVA during June. Comparison with 2019 shows the number of outstanding invoices to be similar. RG to ask Lyrasis for an update in early August, at which point we will considering following up with those Partners who have not yet paid and esp on those who have not yet been invoiced (at their request).
- CC's fundraising contact is willing to talk to the group but has little experience of the library world. JD has a fundraising contact with experience of raising money for libraries (but not a community). KK's brother has fundraising experience but not really relevant to our needs. CC to ask her contact to have a brainstorming session with us in a special call. JD to speak to his contact.
  CC's contact would be willing to speak to us in August. JD's contact would speak to us, though JD would like to give him some context in a one-to-one conversation first. These discussions were subsequently shelved in favor of pursuing ideas in the next bullet.
Discussion of other funding sources and funding targets
- Need to have focused options for fundraising before we can approach funding agencies with any hope of a positive response. The Partner & Roadmap Council call on July 10th is pivotal to this. We should devote all our next call (7/14) to working on this and making our own synthesis of the issues (in addition to any synthesis the RC might offer).
- CC clarified her suggestion of a target from a previous call; suggests we should aim to bring in (say) $50k in addition to our Partner income. Will check to see if there is a science behind such targets - a 20%, 30% addition etc.
- Whilst the Roadmap Council discussion was useful in many ways, for instance, it set out a framework, it did not directly inform our asks. We need to get buy-in that we are trying to maintain products which seem very successful at the moment (eg the British Library project) and we need to capitalize on that. Potential and existing adopters need a roadmap to reassure them that the products are aligned with their direction of travel whether that's with a full solution or their 'roll your own' version of Samvera. The Hyrax roadmap on the wiki is six months out of date. We (the members of the community) need to talk about this bigger issue and commit together to a solution. Does this require a slightly different governance model? A 'benevolent dictatorship'?
  
  What might we do to help? Help close some of the gaps in our offerings esp around Hyrax - for instance find a way to complete its Valkyrization. So, propose a funded project to deal with the gaps in feature development and maintenance; build some consensus around that. Who would apply for the grant? Who would do the work? JD to write up a short version of this concept. We will need community buy-in but it needs to be clear and focused. Initially need a small, engaged group for a larger conversation: including some portion of the Hyrax WG (including the new PO) and the Hyku IG (who, by coincidence, had a roadmap meeting last week to try and share direction). Depending on potential funder, we note there may be a tension with deeply involving service providers. IMLS first deadline is October 2nd.
Next meeting
Tuesday 28th July 8.00am PT, 11.00am ET, 4.00pm UK