We are pleased to announce that PASCAL officially joined the Eastern Academic Scholar’s Trust (EAST) shared print program on November 1st, joining over 130 academic libraries in 15 states in a collaborative effort to protect and provide long-term access to print collections. This strategic move underscores PASCAL’s commitment to preserving and expanding access to scholarly resources across the state. Seventeen member libraries are participating as Consortia Retention Partners, and twenty-two as Consortia Supporting Partners.
In July 2023, the PASCAL Board of Directors approved funding to support a consortial membership in the EAST shared print program, recognizing that this important initiative supports PASCAL’s strategic goal to “Enhance, preserve, and provide universal access to print and electronic information resources to member libraries.” The funding covers the initial three-year membership dues for all participating libraries and the one-time cost for a collection overlap analysis for Retention Partners.
Shared print retention is a transformative approach to resource management that ensures the long-term availability of essential resources through collaboration and distributed storage. By participating in EAST, PASCAL member libraries will be able to make informed collection development decisions, both locally and consortially while safeguarding scholarly resources.
Retention Partners will participate in a collection overlap analysis, supported by PASCAL and EAST staff, via the Gold Rush analysis tool. The analysis will compare designated holdings among participating institutions to inform retention commitments. Once the retention commitments are finalized, Retention Partners will retain and provide access to specific print holdings for at least 15 years. The PASCAL/EAST agreement allows additional member libraries to participate as Consortia Supporting Partners. Both Retention and Supporting partners will be able to participate in interlibrary loan through the EAST lending network at no cost, greatly expanding their resource sharing opportunities.
PASCAL staff, in collaboration with EAST, have already begun working with Retention Partners on data extracts. While completing the full collection analysis and integration into the EAST Lending Network will take time, regular updates will be provided to members as the project progresses.
PASCAL is excited to embark on this initiative and looks forward to working closely with member institutions and EAST to safeguard unique and scarcely held titles in the statewide academic collection and expand resource sharing through strategic, coordinated collection management. Through this new partnership, PASCAL libraries will be better able to support the teaching, learning and research needs of students and faculty across the state.
Additional information about the EAST Consortial Membership is available on the Common Collections guide for Members on the PASCAL website (member password required).
Related: Read the press release on the EAST website.
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