21 November 2023
EBSCO has officially joined Project ReShare to provide financial contributions and expertise to the ReShare Community. The ReShare Community is drawn from libraries, consortia, information organizations and developers. The ReShare Project is building a user-centered, app-based, community-owned resource sharing platform for libraries.
EBSCO’s application for membership, was driven by three aims: to develop the features and functionality of the ReShare platform reflecting the needs of consortia globally, to resource additional expert input from Knowledge Integration being applied to that development, and to expand the pool of vendors contributing to ReShare.
ReShare Steering Committee Chair, Dr. Adam Murray, says that EBSCO’s participation in Project ReShare brings additional expertise and a new level of commitment to the project’s development. “EBSCO has extensive experience and knowledge working and collaborating on open source projects with the library community of developers, consortia, libraries and vendors. EBSCO joining expands the number of vendors capable of sustaining ReShare, while leveraging the expertise of Knowledge Integration in driving ReShare forward as an innovative resource sharing software.”
EBSCO Information Services Director of Product Management and representative for EBSCO on the ReShare steering committee, Mark Allcock says that partnerships with community-driven open source projects like Project ReShare are essential to the success of libraries. “In our conversations with ReShare, our joint goals were clear: to ensure continued sustainability and synergy of open source library technologies through financial contribution, and to give libraries a broader choice of vendors, as we have with FOLIO.”
Ian Ibbotson, co-Founder and Director of Knowledge Integration says, “Knowledge Integration is keen to extend its foundational work to ReShare and work with EBSCO, as part of the ReShare Community, to meet the needs of consortia globally.”
EBSCO has a long-standing commitment to supporting open source projects, including its involvement as an original founder and architect of the FOLIO project. EBSCO continues to provide financial support and expertise to the development, project management, marketing and communications of FOLIO, while also maintaining support of other open source projects like Kuali OLE, Koha, BlackLight, VUFind, Samvera, SWORD, and Evergreen.