Lyrasis is Open + The Library is Open!
As a member-driven and community-focused organization, Lyrasis is here to support you. Over the past decade that has meant being deeply committed to open access, open knowledge and open technologies as foundational tools for the success of libraries, archives, museums and research institutions. This commitment has only grown over the years. We continue to partner with institutions seeking to make scholarly resources more openly accessible, we invest in vital open source solutions through staff, time and financial resources, we proudly serve as the home for crucial community programs, we offer top tier support and hosting services for open source technologies, and we work directly with publishers and researchers to create and fund new open access models, lowering the barriers for participation for institutions across the nation.
This year, as we approach ALA in a climate where libraries of all types are under fire for providing access to banned books, we are reminded of our organizational mission to “provide equitable access to the world’s knowledge and cultural heritage.” To that end, we are expanding our definition of “open” to include the libraries themselves.
Lyrasis is Open, yes. We also believe the library should be open for all!
Lyrasis believes in cultivating and upholding a culture that not only supports initiatives of open access, open knowledge and open source across cultural heritage communities, but also supports inclusive access to knowledge as well.
Open Ebooks
Did you know that Lyrasis also provides access to thousands of free and open ebooks? The Palace Bookshelf, provided in partnership with the Digital Public Library of America, is a curated selection of public domain classics, open educational resources and open access publications from university presses. The Palace Bookshelf is free and available to everyone by downloading The Palace Project app. Additionally, Lyrasis hosts The Open Research Library (ORL) from Knowledge Unlatched on our BiblioBoard platform. This worldwide initiative aims to eventually include all Open Access book content in a singular, seamless platform.
Open Source Community Supported Programs
Lyrasis is proud to be home to a variety of open source community supported programs.
- ArchivesSpace is an open source archives information management application for managing and providing web access to archives, manuscripts and digital objects.
- CollectionSpace is open source software for museums, galleries and archives to manage and share their collections.
- DSpace is the software of choice for academic, non-profit and commercial organizations building open digital repositories.
- Fedora is a robust, modular, open source repository middleware for the management and dissemination of digital content.
- VIVO is an open source software and an ontology for representing scholarship.
Lyrasis Hosted Open Source Services
Lyrasis is proud to offer best-of-field technology solutions including open source software hosting, migration and technical support that allows your institution to focus on what it does best and deliver unparalleled content to your users. Our current hosting services include:
Open Research Infrastructure
In addition to open access initiatives, Lyrasis supports three open research infrastructure programs in the United States (U.S.) designed to lower the barrier of participation for libraries of different sizes, missions, and constituencies to support FAIR research best practices and gain a better understanding of research and scholarly activity across the scholarly communication ecosystem.
- ORCID US Community
- Lyrasis DataCite US Community (for DOIs)
- IRUS (Institutional Repository Usage Statistics) US Community
Open Access
Lyrasis supports more than 20 Open Access content programs available to Lyrasis members and the broader library community. These programs cover books as well as journals and feature diverse publishing models.
- Transformative agreements with six major publishers: Springer Nature, Cambridge University Press, the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, IOP and ACM, with 300 participating Lyrasis members.
- Agreements with publishers such as Lever Press, Open Library of Humanities, Punctum Books, and the University of Michigan Press, which do not charge fees to either authors or readers.
- The Lyrasis Open Access Community Investment Program (OACIP), which is now seeking funding for 8 vetted journals published Diamond Open Access, a publication model in which there is neither cost to the reader nor to the authors.
- Membership programs to sustain critical infrastructure services with the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) and OAPEN Library and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
- And many more!
Explore the full list of Open Access content programs supported by Lyrasis.
Lyrasis at ALA
At the American Libraries Association Annual Meeting from June 27 to July 2, 2024, our booth, #914, will be open to attendees both in person and virtually to embrace our commitment to all things Open. Follow us online on X/Twitter, LinkedIn and on Lyrasisnow.org for updates on our Open initiatives.
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