Boston, MA – October 7, 2019 – The Eastern Academic Scholars' Trust (EAST) is pleased to announce that six of the Florida State University System libraries, plus their shared repository collection, are joining the EAST shared print program. The libraries will join Florida State University, which has been an EAST member since 2016. They are:

• Florida Atlantic University
• Florida Gulf Coast University
• Florida International University
• University of Florida
• University of North Florida
• University of West Florida
• The Florida Academic Repository (FLARE).

These libraries will use the GreenGlass decision support software from OCLC to analyze their collective collections and develop a model to retain unique, scarcely held, and frequently used scholarly monographs.

The addition of these seven libraries brings the total number of EAST members to 65, 60 of whom are retention partners committed to retaining print monographs and/or serials and journals for an initial period of 15 years (from the original June, 2016 retention date). To date, EAST's current retention partners have made commitments to retain over 9 million monographs and some 19,000 serial and journal titles. These items represent scholarly content that, as libraries reconfigure and reclaim space to meet the needs of today's research and teaching institution, might have been discarded without any guarantee they would be preserved by other libraries for future scholarly use.

EAST has been a pioneer in developing a large-scale shared print program that is focused both on preserving print scholarly content, and ensuring that it is made available through standard inter-library lending services to students, faculty, scholars, and researchers in the wider academic and research communities. EAST began its work in July of 2015 with 40 founding members and increased its membership with a second cohort of libraries in late 2016, growing to 58 members by 2019.

As part of its work with members to analyze and model retention of print collections, EAST also undertook a pioneering sample validation study to determine how likely it was that items in a member library's catalog are in usable condition and available for other EAST partners to borrow. With a sample of 312,000 items, the EAST study showed that availability averaged 97% across participating libraries. This study is the largest of its kind and justifies a high level of confidence and trust by institutional stakeholders in collaborative shared print programs.

Commenting on the decision of the Florida State University libraries to join EAST, Judith Russell, Dean of University Libraries at the University of Florida, said, "We have been impressed by the work EAST has done to protect the scholarly record, particularly on this large regional scale. By joining EAST, our libraries will better understand our collective collection and can confidently make informed decisions about retention that best meet the needs of our faculty, students, and scholars, supported by access to the collections of our colleagues in EAST. We shared EAST's clear commitment to the stewardship and preservation work of libraries and are very pleased that by participating in EAST we are ensuring valuable print content in our Florida libraries will be available to all of our members."

Matthew Sheehy, University Librarian at Brandeis University and a member of the EAST Executive Committee, added: "As we look to expand the network of libraries participating in EAST, having models for joining the program that can accommodate not only individual libraries but also groups of libraries and library consortia has been an important consideration. We are pleased our model has been well-received and we welcome our ‘Florida Cohort' to EAST."

Libraries interested in joining EAST can contact Susan Stearns at sstearns@blc.org for further information.

About EAST

The Eastern Academic Scholars' Trust [EAST], a major shared print initiative, launched on July 1, 2015 with important grant support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Davis Educational Foundation. The now 65 member libraries of EAST, from Maine to Florida, are collaborating to retain agreed upon titles in their local circulating collections as well as make them available to lend to other EAST members, thereby ensuring continued access to the scholarly record of print monographs and journals.

About OCLC

OCLC is a nonprofit global library cooperative providing shared technology services, original research and community programs so that libraries can better fuel learning, research and innovation. Through OCLC, member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the most comprehensive global network of data about library collections and services. Libraries gain efficiencies through OCLC's WorldShare, a complete set of library management applications and services built on an open, cloud-based platform. It is through collaboration and sharing of the world's collected knowledge that libraries can help people find answers they need to solve problems. Together as OCLC, member libraries, staff and partners make breakthroughs possible.