PROJECT HISTORY

The It Takes a Village project was funded in 2017 by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to bring together open source programs serving cultural and scientific heritage to develop shared sustainability strategies, and to provide our communities with the information needed to assess and contribute to the sustainability of the programs they depend on.

The core output of the original project was a Guidebook designed to serve as a practical reference source to help open source software (OSS) programs serving cultural and scientific heritage organizations plan for long-term sustainability, ensuring that commitment and resources will be available at levels sufficient for the software to remain viable and effective as long as it is needed.

The IMLS Proposal for the Guidebook work can be found at this link.

In 2020, IMLS funded a new phase of It Takes a Village work, ITAV In Practice, to create an adaptable toolkit for practical use in planning and managing sustainability for open source software (OSS) initiatives serving cultural and scientific heritage organizations. ITAV in Practiced strengthened the ability of libraries, archives, and museums to sustain community supported OSS programs, which are critical to managing and growing local and national digital infrastructures.

The IMLS Proposal for the Toolkit can be found at this link.

It Takes a Village Advisory Group