INDIANAPOLIS and DREXEL HILL, Pa.—The Sustaining the Hyku Repository Platform Steering Group—a collaborative effort led by the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) and the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration & Innovation (PALCI) in partnership with the Samvera Community—is excited to announce grant support for two recently defined Hyku community positions.
Nic Don Stanton-Roark, Hyku Product Owner
As Hyku Product Owner, Stanton-Roark—PALNI Institutional Repository and Archives Consultant and Anderson University Archivist—will guide Hyku’s development strategy in collaboration with the Hyku Technical Lead. Previously serving as the Hyku for Consortia Project Liaison, Stanton-Roark brings extensive experience in repository development to the role.
He will represent Hyku in the Roadmaps Alignment Group and work to enhance efficiencies by aligning project priorities, refining the backlog, creating milestones, and reducing duplication across Hyku initiatives. Additionally, he will lead the Hyku Interest Group, develop documentation, and support outreach efforts, including requests for information, demos, and conference presentations, in collaboration with the Samvera Community Manager and the Hyku User Community.
The former Hyku Product Owner, Rob Kaufman, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at Scientist.com, has shaped this role over several years of service. His dedication has been key in bringing Hyku to a point where the community can expand its capacity and provide even greater support. As he continues in the Hyku Tech Lead role, the Samvera Community celebrates Kaufman’s impact, leadership, and continued dedication.
Tracy McCormick, Hyku Community Developer/Programmer
As Hyku Community Developer/Programmer, McCormick—Full Stack Developer and Professional Technologist 3 at West Virginia University Libraries—will increase community expertise and expand development capacity within the Hyku ecosystem. Reporting to the Sustaining the Hyku Repository Platform IMLS Grant Project Director and working closely with the Hyku Technical Lead and Product Owner, he will play a key role in maintaining and enhancing the Hyku codebase.
Working in the core Hyku release, McCormick will focus on projects that support community-defined needs. With time contributed by WVU Libraries and by collaborating with the Hyku Tech Lead and Product Owner, he will participate in training, serve on a community maintenance group, and provide programming support (in Ruby, JavaScript, etc.) for feature development, bug fixes, accessibility improvements, maintenance, testing, and code documentation.
This is a new role for the Hyku community. The goal of this position is to add to the Hyku developer pool and strengthen the Hyku community’s ability to contribute on a technical level.
Strengthening Hyku
Hyku for Consortia—an initiative led by PALNI and PALCI—has been at the forefront of scaling and sustaining Hyku for use by consortial library communities. As part of the Samvera open-source repository platform, Hyku provides libraries, archives, and cultural heritage institutions with a flexible, multi-tenant repository solution.
“The addition of these two new roles reflects an ongoing commitment to ensuring Hyku’s long-term sustainability and usability for a broad community of users,” says Amanda Hurford, PALNI Scholarly Communications Director and Project Director for the grant. “With the expertise that Stanton-Roark and McCormick bring to the team, Hyku is well-positioned for continued growth and impact.”
“The piloting of these roles will enable the Samvera Community to show evidence that working together in this way will strengthen the community, improve the quality of the software, and expand efficiencies in how we support this open source software,” says Kirsten Leonard, PALNI Executive Director. “Our goal is to provide a successful model the community will support going forward that attracts more talented people to the Hyku and Samvera Community.”
For more information about the Sustaining the Hyku Repository Platform project and Hyku for Consortia, visit https://hykuconsortia.org.
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About the Institute of Museum and Library Services
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. IMLS envisions a nation where individuals and communities have access to museums and libraries to learn from and be inspired by the trusted information, ideas, and stories they contain about our diverse natural and cultural heritage. To learn more, visit www.imls.gov and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI)
The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) is a non-profit organization that supports collaboration for library and information services for 24 colleges, universities, and seminaries throughout the state. From its inception in 1992, the PALNI collaboration has been a key avenue for its supported institutions to contain costs while providing more effective library services. More recently, PALNI has adopted a model of deep collaboration that pools resources and people as a tool to expand services while containing costs. Simultaneously, PALNI is expanding collaboration within its institutions and with external library partners to address challenges and build cost-effective services. Visit www.palni.org for more information.
PALNI Supported Institutions
Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary | Anderson University | Bethel University | Butler University | Concordia Theological Seminary | Christian Theological Seminary | DePauw University | Earlham College | Franklin College | Goshen College | Grace College | Hanover College | Huntington University | Manchester University | Marian University | Oakland City University | University of Saint Francis | Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College | Saint Mary’s College | Saint Meinrad’s Seminary and School of Theology | Taylor University | Trine University | University of Indianapolis | Wabash College
About The Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration & Innovation (PALCI)
The Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation (PALCI) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) membership organization that originated in 1996 and was incorporated in 1998 as the Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc. Today, PALCI’s membership has grown to include more than 70 academic and research libraries in Pennsylvania and contiguous states. PALCI’s mission is to enable cost-effective and sustainable access to information resources and services. PALCI is known for its highly-regarded EZBorrow consortial interlibrary loan (ILL) service. PALCI members collaborate to serve over 800,000 students, faculty, and staff, focusing on collaborative collections programs, resource sharing services, and innovative technology projects and approaches to library services. Visit www.palci.org for more information.
About Samvera
Samvera is an Icelandic word meaning “togetherness.” The Samvera Community is a global community of technologists who create and maintain repository software; you can’t install Samvera, but you can install the repository solutions we develop together including Avalon Media System, Hyrax, and Hyku. Institutions worldwide rely on Samvera Community-supported software to provide access to their digital content. Samvera is also a community of practice where software developers and library technologists can support and learn from one another. We have active participation from metadata specialists, repository managers, user experience professionals, and others who contribute their expertise to ensure the software stays relevant and responsive to changing needs. Samvera software is free and open source, available under an Apache 2 license. It offers flexible and rich user interfaces tailored to distinct content types on top of a robust back end – giving adopters the best of both worlds. Visit www.samvera.org for more information.
