Are you a critical thinker interested in
contributing to innovation within the library, archive and museum communities?
If so, please consider sharing your knowledge, expertise and experience by
reviewing proposals to the Catalyst Fund.
The Catalyst Fund is an award program that provides
support for new ideas and innovative projects from the LYRASIS membership. It
is administered by the LYRASIS Leaders Circle to expand opportunities to
explore, test, refine and collaborate on innovations with potential for community-wide
impact. 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 Leaders Circle for use in evaluating which proposals to
fund.
Reviewers are critical commentators on what is
valuable to the community. We are looking for librarians, archivists and museum
professionals 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. 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:
Read the proposal,
Review it against the evaluation criteria, giving numeric ratings to indicate how well the
proposal meets each, and
Add brief comments for the applicant (one to two
sentences suggesting strengths or weaknesses).
We will have an optional, online session in
early March to go over the review process. A recording link will be sent via
email to volunteers unable to attend in person.
After applications are reviewed, comments and
ratings will be provided to participants in the LYRASIS Leaders Circle 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.
