Samvera Community Newsletter May 2026 -Virtual Connect is next week
Heather Greer Klein
In this issue:
Samvera Virtual Connect is next week, May 12th - 13th
Welcome to new Samvera Board members Michael B. Klein and Jessica McMillen
Free Registration for Open Repositories 2026, Online 8th - 11th June
Reminder: Submit a treasure in your collections to feature in the Samvera Community Repository Tour
In case you missed it: other news from the Samvera Community email list
1 – Samvera Virtual Connect is next week, May 12th - 13th
The full program is now available for Samvera Virtual Connect 2026, taking place next week on Tuesday, May 12 and Wednesday, May 13, 2026.
This free, virtual event (held via Zoom) runs each day from:
8:00–11:00 AM PDT
11:00 AM–2:00 PM EDT
15:00–18:00 UTC
This year’s program highlights practical, community-driven work and planning for what comes next. A few sessions you won’t want to miss:
Community updates
The latest updates from Avalon, Hyku, and Hyrax Product Owners, along with a report from Technical Coordinator Rob Kaufman
Sustaining Hyku: An IMLS Grant Update, sharing progress on governance, sustainability, and collaboration models
We did it – Welcome to Fedora 7.x, exploring what’s new in the latest major Fedora release
Repository stories
Preserving Richness, Enabling Access, a deep dive into Indiana University’s dual-repository migration strategy for a complex digital collection
Repository showcases from West Virginia University, Indiana University, and the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford University
We Never Thought We’d Need to Do This, a timely look at UNC-Chapel Hill’s rapid-response project to preserve at-risk federal research
The latest technical processes, emerging challenges, and what comes next on our technical roadmap
From Whack-a-Mole to Edge Protection, addressing AI scraping and infrastructure resilience
Fedora as a Supplementary Repository in Hyrax, proposing new architectural approaches for performance and durability
Working Smarter AND Harder, a candid look at the processes behind the community-funded Bulkrax CSV Guided Importer
Flexible Metadata: Now, Next, and After That, exploring the evolution of metadata modeling in Hyku and Hyrax
Transforming RDF Metadata with SPARQL CONSTRUCT, demonstrating approaches to making RDF data more usable and publishable
Going Up – Keeping Your App Up to Date w/ Hyrax, with practical guidance on upgrades and new community resources
We'll end each day with an interactive, facilitated discussion session:
May 12th: Who Decides? Building a Community Decision-Making Framework for Hyku
May 13th: Hyrax Ingest – Could It Be Simpler?
Throughout both days, you’ll hear directly from repository managers, developers, and community leaders sharing lessons learned, challenges, and ideas for what comes next.
Samvera Virtual Connect is an informal, welcoming space for anyone working with or interested in Samvera technologies and a valuable opportunity to learn from peers and contribute to the conversation.
Register for free on Eventbrite
2 – Welcome to new Samvera Board members Michael B. Klein and Jessica McMillen
Welcome to our newest Samvera Board members, Michael B. Klein from Northwestern University and Jessica McMillen from West Virginia University. Michael and Jessica complete our open Board vacancies to bring us to our full nine person Board.
4 – Free Registration is Open for Open Repositories 2026
From the Open Repositories Program Committee:
Join us online for Open Repositories 2026, 8-11 June! We are thrilled to announce that, thanks to the generous support of our OR2026 sponsors, we are able to make the conference available to all participants at no cost!
Registration will be open through the end of the conference, or until the maximum capacity of 1000 registrants is reached.
Learn more about registering for OR2026
IMPORTANT NOTE! Presenting authors and session chairs do not need to register for the conference. Presenting authors and session chairs will be pre-registered by the organizers, and will receive instructions about accessing the platform several weeks before the conference.
See the preliminary OR2026 conference program
Note that this program is preliminary and subject to change. The final program will be available several weeks before the conference.
All times in the preliminary program are in UTC (see timezone conversion chart). When the final program is available, you will be able to view it in the virtual conference platform in your local time.
5 – Reminder: Submit a treasure in your collections to feature in the Samvera Community Repository Tour
The Outreach and Engagement Working Group is revamping our Samvera Community Repository tour on the samvera.org website, and we need your contributions! The tour offers an easy and fun way to see the diversity of collections and institutions who use Samvera technologies to power their repositories.
Please complete this brief form to share one particularly fun/interesting/notable holding in your repository so we can feature it on the tour.
6 – All Working and Interest Group calls for the month of May
See all Samvera Community calls, meetings, and events on the Samvera Public Calendar
Weekly Samvera Tech call - all are welcome to the weekly call on Wednesdays at 12PM ET/9AM PT to share local technical work, discuss any and all technical issues from all versions of software, documentation requests, and open pull requests. Add the weekly Samvera Tech call to your calendar
Hyrax Interest Group - Scheduled May meeting conflicts with Samvera Virtual Connect; next meeting is Wednesday, June 10th at 11:30AM ET/8:30AM PT – Add the Hyrax Interest Group meetings to your calendar
Avalon User Roundtable - next meeting is Monday, May 18th at 1PM ET/10AM PT – Add the Avalon User Roundtable meetings to your calendar
Documentation Interest Group - next meeting is Tuesday, May 19th at 2:30PM ET/11:30AM PT – Add the Documentation Interest Group meetings to your calendar
Outreach & Engagement Working Group - next meeting is Wednesday, May 20th at 12PM ET/9AM PT – Add the Outreach & Engagement Working Group meetings to your calendar
Samvera Metadata Interest Group - the next meeting is Tuesday, May 26th at 2PM ET/11AM PT – Add the Metadata Interest Group meetings to your calendar
Samvera AI Working Group - the next meeting is Wednesday, May 27th at 11:00AM ET/8:00 AM PT – Add the AI Working Group meetings to your calendar
Hyku Interest Group - the next meeting is Thursday, May 28th at 11:30AM ET/8:30AM PT; the May meeting is May 28th – Add the Hyku Interest Group meetings to your calendar
Repository Management Interest Group – each month’s meeting is scheduled by a vote in the #repository-management channel on Slack.
Monthly Samvera Partners call - all staff of Samvera Partner institutions, or those interested in becoming Partners, are welcome to join the monthly call for discussion, demos, updates, and information about Samvera governance. Add the monthly Partner call to your calendar
Chat with Heather Greer Klein, the Samvera Community Manager, by scheduling time during Community Manager Office Hours