Are you a critical thinker
interested in contributing to innovation within the library, archives, museum,
research, and open-source communities? If so, please consider sharing your
knowledge, expertise, and experience by reviewing proposals to the Catalyst
Fund. Applications are submitted in January-February each year and reviewed in
March and April. That is where we hope you can help!
All proposals are
reviewed by field experts to rate them against the Catalyst
Fund criteria. Each application is evaluated by
multiple reviewers. The combined feedback is then provided anonymously to
the Lyrasis membership for use in evaluating which proposals to fund.
Reviewers are critical
commentators on what is valuablee to the community. We are looking for
librarians, archivists, museum professionals, and researchers working in
diverse areas, such as accessibility, assessment, collections management,
community outreach and programming, facilities, metadata, open content,
open-source software, preservation, professional training, and technology.
Individuals from Lyrasis member and non-member organizations may volunteer. To
avoid any conflict of interest, however, volunteers will not be allowed to
review if their own institution submits a proposal.
If you are interested,
please fill in this form to
provide us with current contact instructions and some information about your
interests and expertise so that we can match you to the right types of Catalyst
Fund applications.
Reviewer Responsibilities
Each reviewer will receive 5-6 proposals to review depending upon how many are submitted to the Catalyst Fund. The applications are not long — only 2 pages each — and will be sent to you in PDF format via email.
During mid-February, Lyrasis will contact you to check your availability during the anticipated review period – March/April. If confirmed, everything a reviewer needs will be included in a follow-up email package – your assigned proposals, a link to the online review form, instructions, and review criteria. Based on previous review processes, we expect that it will take you approximately 20-30 minutes per application.
Reviewers will:
After applications are reviewed, comments and ratings will be provided to participants in the Lyrasis membership for the selection process. Recipients will be announced in early June. As follow-up for both funded and unfunded applications, Lyrasis will share reviewers' comments anonymously with individual applicants, but not numerical ratings.
If you have questions about reviewing for the Catalyst Fund, contact catalystfund@Lyrasis.org.