Atlanta, GA – August 18, 2021 – LYRASIS, a non-profit member organization serving the global landscape of academic and public libraries, scholarly research, archives, museums, and galleries, announces the release of the LYRASIS 2021 Open Source Software Survey: Understanding the Landscape of Open Source Software Support in American Libraries authored by Hannah Rosen, Strategist for Research and Scholarly Communication, and Jill Grogg, Strategist for Content and Scholarly Communication Initiatives. The report can be accessed on the new LYRASIS Research Repository and the survey results button below.
As a global nonprofit serving knowledge communities worldwide, LYRASIS invests in open source software (OSS) both as in institutional home for different OSS communities and as an OSS service provider. LYRASIS is the organizational home of ArchivesSpace, DSpace, CollectionSpace, Fedora, and VIVO. To better understand how GLAM institutions interact with these kinds of OSS programs, LYRASIS conducted a survey of its membership and users in the spring of 2021. The survey focused on challenges and opportunities in community-supported open source software (OSS). The survey questions were designed with input from LYRASIS members who were keenly interested in understanding how their peers support and advocate for OSS programs. The survey was divided into three sections: funding and support for OSS; justifying the use of OSS; and evaluating OSS.
Included in this report are the results of the 2021 LYRASIS OSS survey along with an executive summary outlining the key findings from survey respondents. These findings paint a broad picture of the OSS landscape for libraries, archives, museums, and research institutions, particularly American academic institutions, and contextualize the current environment for OSS. The goal of the report is to provide the field with a better understanding of overarching attitudes within their community and to see where they fit within the spectrum. The survey results will hopefully also help institutions better justify and support OSS and help OSS communities better serve their communities and demonstrate their value.
The OSS report grew from the research priorities set by the LYRASIS Leader's Circle. The survey was conducted between March 1st and April 9th, 2021 and distributed via email to all LYRASIS members, as well as via two listservs run and maintained by LYRASIS staff, and sent to additional targeted groups within the LYRASIS community.
About LYRASIS
LYRASIS is a global, non-profit membership organization whose mission is to support enduring access to the world's shared academic, scientific, and cultural heritage through leadership in open technologies, content services, digital solutions, and collaboration with archives, libraries, museums, and knowledge communities worldwide. LYRASIS organizational and staff values are communication, respect, collaboration, impact, and service. To learn more, visit www.lyrasis.org.