We built the library system we wished we’d had.
Lyra (LY-ruh) started with a simple frustration: the tools school libraries run on were slow, dated, and clearly built by people who’d never worked a circulation desk. So a librarian set out to build something better.
Founded in 2025, Lyra is a modern integrated library system for private and independent K–12 schools. It came out of years spent inside real school libraries: importing MARC records, chasing rosters at the start of term, and fighting an ILS to do basic things.
The category hadn’t really moved in a decade. The systems schools switch from are powerful but heavy, and switching itself is so painful that most librarians endure the tool they have. We thought the honest fix wasn’t another feature pile. It was a system that respects a librarian’s time, gets out of the way, and makes migration something you can do yourself, during the school year.
So Lyra is deliberately focused: circulation, cataloging, patrons, a reading-app OPAC kids actually enjoy, and Vega, an AI assistant that understands your collection without ever touching patron data. We’d rather do a smaller number of things genuinely well than everything adequately.
We launched in 2026. That’s early, and we don’t pretend otherwise. It also means the librarians who join now directly shape what Lyra becomes.
“Every feature here exists because a librarian (usually me) needed it on a Tuesday morning, between bells, with a kid waiting at the desk.”
A few principles we don’t bend on.
Named for a small constellation.
Lyra is a harp of 6 stars, and the brightest of them is Vega. That is where both names come from: the product, and the assistant inside it that answers questions about your collection.
It is a small constellation. You can find the whole thing on a clear night without a telescope, which felt about right for a library system built for small schools.
We’re partnering with 6 founding schools, one for each star, each of them helping chart what Lyra becomes.
Meet the founding customer program