Dear Colleague,

I wanted to reach out and share some of the work we’ve been doing here at LYRASIS on behalf of you, our members. In addition to our long history of transactional skills and expertise, we are also focused on thought leadership. We are striving to leverage both these important focus areas to strengthen your services, expand your institutional capacity and help all our members “punch above our weight”.

The 4 top line items I’d like to share today are:

  • Leaders Circle – Made up of institutions of all sizes who were seeking a venue to help discuss problems, target realistic opportunities and set the agenda of where we need to be going, our Leaders Circle is now one of the main idea incubators for LYRASIS. Our initial target was 25 thought leaders and today we are humbled to have 65, ranging from small and dynamic, to focused and thematic. Click here to see the full list. Please consider joining us today.
  • 2017 Regional Leaders Forums – Think of this as your regional “backyard’ think tank. There will be 6 regional forums this year. The first was held in Baltimore prior to ACRL. The focus for each will be around ideation process, member case studies and a high-level assessment of threats and opportunities in 3 key areas – software, eResources and open content and digital services.
  • Our 2017 Catalyst $100,000 Fund – We are investing back in you. We have set up an endowment and from the first year’s interest and dividends we are investing $100,000 in you, our members, in the form of seed funding for 4-6 member projects and ideas. We would have been thrilled if we had 10 good submissions. We had 61. We are excited to announce the Catalyst Fund awardees in the coming weeks.
  • Save the Date for the Annual Member Summit – Our second Member Summit will be held on October 11 – 12 in Philadelphia. We will kick off day one with Leaders Circle planning, an update on Catalyst Fund projects and an exciting new ideas forum for year 2 of the Catalyst Fund (think of a friendly Shark Tank format). Day two will focus on the intersection of content – preservation, access and use – between archives, libraries and museums. We’re excited to announce that this year’s keynote will be Dr. Simon Chaplin from the UK’s Wellcome Trust (a Leaders Circle member). Details and registration to come soon.

In closing, I’d like to share a book recommendation for those who, like me, are constantly seeking new sources of inspiration. Our entire Board and management team has recently read “Seeing What Others Don’t” by Gary Klein, and we’re striving to incorporate some of the lessons into our daily program.

On behalf of our very talented team at LYRASIS, I will close by thanking you for allowing us to serve and work on your behalf.

Briskly forward,

 

 

 

Robert Miller, LYRASIS CEO