Mission

Lyrasis catalyzes and enables equitable access to the world’s knowledge and cultural heritage.​

Strategic Plan

  • Lyrasis will help its members succeed by working with them to identify their needs, issues and challenges and providing products, services and learning experiences to address them.
  • Lyrasis will help its members succeed by providing leadership in and opportunities for innovation and sustainability and facilitating their pursuit of a preferred future. ​
Illustration of large diverse group reading

Lyrasis is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization whose mission is to support enduring access to the world’s shared academic, scientific and cultural heritage through leadership in open technologies, content services, digital solutions and collaboration with archives, libraries, museums and knowledge communities worldwide. Lyrasis organizational and staff values are: communication, respect, collaboration, impact and service. Lyrasis was created by its members to help them tackle wide-reaching challenges with a collective strength, including: the development and selection of new technology solutions; fostering community-wide projects that help deliver better outcomes and services; content creation, acquisition and management; support for new content models and strategies; and large-scale knowledge management programs unique to collections-holding institutions.

Lyrasis Commitment to Diversity, Equity,
Inclusion and Accessibility

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) are core values at Lyrasis. Our mission, to catalyze and enable equitable access to the world’s knowledge and cultural heritage, can only be achieved by inviting and valuing the perspectives, experiences and identities of all people. As such, we are committed to seeking and welcoming diversity in our recruiting, hiring and culture-building practices to create an environment that is equitable, inclusive and accessible for all. Lyrasis works to fulfill this commitment through:

  • Recruiting and interviewing a diverse candidate pool for any and all open positions
  • Enacting robust non-discriminatory practices for hiring, retention and evaluation of team members
  • Welcoming the input and participation from the diverse members of our programs and services communities
  • Creating and supporting a staff-directed DEIA committee to identify and address opportunities and challenges to building equity
  • Identifying opportunities and enacting solutions to make our work and workplace more diverse, equitable, inclusive and accessible

History

With an organizational history dating back to 1936, Lyrasis is home to more than 1,000 member academic and public libraries, museums, archives and other collections-holding organizations located in 28 countries. With a global staff of more than 100 experts and professionals, Lyrasis is organized into three primary units of focus – community supported/open source software, technology hosting services and content creation and acquisition. In addition to these business units, we also offer specific programs such as consulting, training, fiscal services and more. Supporting these three units are dedicated teams including member outreach and member services (sales and customer service), marketing and communication, fiscal operations, grant writing and licensing. These are unique functional areas and benefits afforded the member.

Lyrasis, as it currently exists, was created in 2009 by the merger of SOLINET and PALINET, two regional library networks in the eastern U.S. NELINET and the Bibliographical Center for Research (BCR) joined shortly thereafter. In 2019, Lyrasis merged with DuraSpace, a globally recognized leader in open source software technologies. The merger brought together two dynamic communities and made Lyrasis home to ten community-supported programs and 1733 users, all under one roof.

Lyrasis operates with strict fiscal discipline. This commitment ensures the financial health needed to preserve the heart of a non-profit, enabling it to build a mission-driven team of professionals and an organizational structure capable of creating sustainable global solutions at scale. Ultimately, Lyrasis helps its members amplify their impact and influence, participate in national and international programs, create and deliver better programs and services to their communities, while still maintaining their unique collections, cultures and identities.