Invitation: FITS Transition Planning Meeting (Dec 11)

[Woods, Andrew]

Hello FITS Community,

Over the years, many of you have helped make FITS a widely used and well-loved tool. Thank you.

Harvard’s capacity to maintain and update FITS has steadily decreased. In addition, our upcoming migration to a new digital preservation repository includes its own tools for technical metadata extraction. Taken together, Harvard will no longer be able to host and steward the FITS project.

We want to discuss the path forward with the community. Please join an open conversation on FITS Transition Planning:
Date/Time:
- Thursday, December 11, 2025, 11:00 a.m. Eastern
Details & agenda:
- https://github.com/harvard-lts/fits/wiki/2025.12.11-FITS-Transition-Planning-Meeting

All are welcome. We encourage practitioners, contributors, and organizations that rely on FITS to attend and share perspectives on options and needs.

Thank you for your continued support of the project.

Regards,
Andrew Woods
Manager of Library Software Engineering | Library Technology Services
Harvard University Information Technology

[Woods, Andrew]

Hello All,

Reminder: meeting tomorrow to discuss ongoing stewardship of FITS.

https://github.com/harvard-lts/fits/wiki/2025.12.11-FITS-Transition-Planning-Meeting

Best,

Andrew

[Woods, Andrew]

Hello FITS Community,

Thanks for your strong show of support for FITS at last week's very constructive meeting! There were 19 attendees from 15 institutions. We are collectively putting the pieces in place to ensure FITS has a long and healthy future. Please review the take-aways and actions in the 2025-12-11 wiki.

Our follow-up meeting will be in the new year (2026-01-29), where we will advance the effort to establish a new organizational home and related processes.

https://github.com/harvard-lts/fits/wiki/2026.01.29-FITS-Transition-Planning-Meeting-cont.

Please mark your calendars.

- Andrew

[Woods, Andrew]

Hello FITS Community,

Thanks again for your support for FITS and engagement at today's meeting. Please review the take-aways and actions in the 2026-01-29 wiki.

Our follow-up meeting will be in March (2026-03-10), after the OPF board meeting. If you have not already, please consider signing the open letter of support for FITS before February 16th.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14GI-rPVbG_bN9qpd0xHtaatAb9arL1oRolibR-JqvEU/edit

Please mark your calendars for the March continuation of the conversation.
https://github.com/harvard-lts/fits/wiki/2026.03.10-FITS-Transition-Planning-Meeting-cont

- Andrew

[Woods, Andrew]

Hello All,

Please feel free to add topics or updates to the agenda (2026-03-10) in advance of tomorrow's (11am ET) meeting.

Thanks,

Andrew

[Woods, Andrew]

Hello FITS Community,
Thanks again for your support for FITS and engagement at today's meeting. Please review the take-aways and actions in the 2026-03-10 wiki.

Actions:
- Draft “Level 0 support” document as a pull-request by Mar 24

- Formalize FITS steering group membership

- Expand outreach and communications

- Test pull-requests (specific focus on #417)

- Clarify interim stewardship posture

Best regards,
- Andrew