PALNI, PALCI, and Samvera partner to strengthen Hyku Community through developer training

INDIANAPOLIS and DREXEL HILL, Pa.— The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) and the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation (PALCI) are pleased to announce the successful completion of the Hyku & Hyrax Community Developer Training Camp, held October 7–10, 2025, at the University of Pittsburgh. The four-day, hands-on program—developed in partnership with the Samvera Community—demonstrates a shared commitment to strengthening open-source repository infrastructure through capacity building and community investment.

The program was funded in part through the Sustaining the Hyku Repository Platform project, supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under grant number LG-256726-OLS-24.

Hosted by the University of Pittsburgh Library System, a Hyku implementer, the camp brought developers together for intensive, cohort-based training focused on contributing to Hyku, Hyrax, and related codebases. Hillman University Librarian and Director of the Library System for the University of Pittsburgh, Kornelia Tancheva noted, “Supporting open infrastructure is part of our commitment to open in general and we are happy to contribute to community building around it. When libraries invest in shared skills and open infrastructure, everyone benefits. We want our researchers and students to be able to rely on sustainable, open platforms to preserve and access knowledge well into the future.”

The workshop was led by Mark Bussey of Data Curation Experts, who noted the high level of engagement among participants. Bussey, who has facilitated more than 15 Samvera camps and workshops over the past decade, said, “It was fantastic to work with such an engaged group of developers in Pittsburgh. My job as a facilitator is so much more powerful when everyone comes eager to share real-world insights that can cross-pollinate and accelerate community efforts.”

Heather Greer Klein, Community Manager at Samvera, added, “Developing a shared curriculum for this camp is a major step forward for the community. It enables Samvera and our partners to offer future training opportunities—both in person and virtually—expanding access and strengthening developer capacity over the long term.”

The training camp advances the grant project’s goal of expanding the Hyku developer pool by equipping new and emerging contributors with the skills needed to work in the Ruby on Rails–based stack, collaborate on community-maintained code, and build technical expertise that extends beyond local institutional needs. As a key milestone in the project’s capacity-building workstream, the camp helps reduce reliance on a single software service provider and strengthens long-term technical resiliency within the Hyku community.

“This training camp represents a significant investment in the people who sustain Hyku,” said Amanda Hurford, Scholarly Communications Director at PALNI and Project Director for the grant. “Building developer capacity across the community is essential for keeping Hyku strong, sustainable, and truly open. We’re thrilled to support opportunities that empower more contributors to engage with the platform at a technical level.”

By cultivating technical expertise across institutions, the Sustaining the Hyku Repository Platform project supports a broader and more diverse cohort of developers and reinforces a distributed, community-driven foundation for Hyku’s long-term growth.

Training materials from the camp are available at https://github.com/RepoCamp/pitt2025/wiki.  For more information about the Sustaining Hyku project, visit hykuforconsortia.org. 

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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 23 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 the PALNI website for more information. (www.palni.org)

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 | 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) consortium of 80 academic and research libraries in Pennsylvania and the surrounding region. Together, PALCI members serve more than 800,000 students, faculty, and staff in five states by advancing cost-effective and sustainable access to information resources and services. Known for its applied innovation, high-impact group negotiations, and the widely used EZBorrow consortial interlibrary loan service, PALCI supports collaboration through shared collections programs, resource sharing services, and pioneering standards-based approaches to library technology. Founded in 1996 as the Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc., PALCI continues to foster collective solutions that strengthen libraries and the communities they serve. See the full list of PALCI member libraries, here.

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.

About the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)

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.