A VIVO Community Update: Reflections on the Last Year and Where We Are Headed.

Abstract

2020 and the pandemic was a challenge for the VIVO community as much as anyone else. Pandemic-related challenges for our members resulted have affected our community. The pandemic also limited our ability to get together at community events like the annual VIVO Conference. Even in the face of these challenges, the community has had a very good year. New versions of the VIVO software have been released, new members have been recruited to join our community, and outstanding online user group meetings (i.e. North America, Germany, and Spanish-language groups) and the annual VIVO conference have been held. There have also been improvements in the governance of the community with the election of Leadership group officers, new task forces/interest groups forming, and better coordination with Lyrasis. Finally, the community is working on two new important initiatives. We are currently exploring developing better collaborations with EuroCris and the development of a simplified version of VIVO that we are calling “VIVO-In-A-Box” that seeks to lower the barriers to implementation of new VIVO instances at diverse organizations. In this talk, Bruce Herbert, Chair and representative of the VIVO Leadership Group, will review the state of the VIVO community, highlighting our successes for the past year and the exciting initiatives we have started.