The Institute of Museum and Library Services has awarded DuraSpace a National Digital Platform Planning Grant for $49,279 to investigate barriers to upgrading hundreds of U.S.-based libraries and archives running unsupported versions of Fedora. In consultation with stakeholders this project will conduct an environmental scan of relevant community initiatives, and gather primary research data to inform recommendations to reduce barriers to upgrading to the most current version of Fedora.

There are approximately 240 U.S.-based libraries and archives identified as target beneficiaries of the deliverables of this project including universities, liberal arts colleges, and not-for-profit special libraries hosted by historical societies and small research institutes.

Working closely with stakeholders which include the Islandora and Samvera communities the Migration Path project will begin on October 1. First steps will include convening an advisory board representing a spectrum of experiences deploying Fedora, as well as a diversity of organization sizes and resources including community governance representatives, R1 institutions, a representative of a related grant-funded project, and a liberal arts college that collaborates with consortia-style bodies for sharing resources and reducing costs.

We expect to begin disseminating the results of the project as soon as June 2019.

The full Designing a Migration Path: Assessing Barriers Upgrading to the Most Current Version of Fedora–project narrative is available here: https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/FF/Designing+a+Migration+Path