The Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries (PASCAL) announced earlier this month that 37 member libraries have joined the Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (EAST), a shared print consortium that allows member libraries to responsibly clear physical spaces in local collections and create spaces for new library services while preserving access to scholarly resources.
Regional shared print programs such as EAST create agreements to distribute storage responsibilities between libraries in order to retain and provide access to unique print holdings for a specified time period. Participation in this major print retention partnership represents a milestone for South Carolina libraries that PASCAL has been working towards for several years.
The 17 PASCAL member libraries joining EAST as Retention Partners are:
● Anderson University
● Charleston Southern University
● The Citadel
● Clemson University
● Coastal Carolina University
● College of Charleston
● Converse University
● Francis Marion University
● Furman University
● Lander University
● South Carolina State University
● Spartanburg Methodist College
● University of South Carolina (Includes School of Law & School of Medicine)
● University of South Carolina Beaufort
● University of South Carolina Upstate
● Winthrop University
● Wofford College
PASCAL also announced that 20 additional member libraries are joining EAST as Supporting Partners, allowing them to participate in the EAST lending network, which includes the more than 150 libraries in the Eastern United States. This network supports lending and borrowing using standard inter-library loan.
“The staff at PASCAL have been amazing in their support of shared print and in their organizational ability to move quickly to undertake the collection analysis work that will ensure unique, scarcely held, and frequently used titles continue to be protected and accessible to the academic and research library community,” said Susan Stearns, program director for EAST.
All participating libraries will benefit from resource sharing with more than 100 academic and research libraries across 15 states though the EAST lending network, greatly expanding access to scholarly materials for students, faculty and researchers.
“South Carolina’s academic libraries will benefit greatly from the expertise and experience shared by our new colleagues. EAST provides important tools for us to protect and preserve the most essential elements of the print collections in academic libraries around the state,” said Rick Moul, executive director of PASCAL.
He added EAST's shared print program provides advantages of scale and affordability, including a well-developed and tested methodology for collection analysis and ongoing maintenance of the “shared” collection.
Serving more than 230,000 students at 55 colleges and universities, PASCAL supports higher education in South Carolina through multiple programs including shared technology infrastructure for 53 institutions; licensing of core electronic resources; collaboratively managed library collections, including a robust shared e-book program; and statewide rapid resource sharing services. The South Carolina Commission on Higher Education serves as the fiscal agent for PASCAL.
Chris Cox, dean of libraries at Clemson University, said “Joining EAST is an excellent opportunity for Clemson and our fellow PASCAL libraries to work with premiere research libraries across the Eastern United States to protect and preserve physical resources for posterity.”
John White, dean of libraries at the College of Charleston noted, “We are very excited to join EAST and to contribute to its mission to expand and preserve access to the rich collections of its member institutions. We are honored to be included among the more than 100 member libraries. I have no doubt that membership in EAST will benefit not only our students at the College of Charleston, but the larger academic community that we are now a part of.”
The circulating print collections of these libraries number close to 4 million titles, which will be included in a group wide collection analysis to determine titles to be added to the EAST collective collection, now at over 11 million monographs and 37,000 serials and journals representing the titles EAST members have committed to retain in their local collections on behalf of EAST and lend to partner libraries.
For additional information, visit the PASCAL website.