We found some older brittle books that can not be replaced at a reasonable cost. We also fear that these older materials will likely be brittle at all libraries that hold them. Can we replace nineteenth-century and other older editions with modern reprints? Is it possible that the HathiTrust publicly available edition could stand for our retention commitment?

In general EAST prefers that original material be retained if at all possible. However, we recognize that this is not always possible in the case of deteriorating materials. Usually we would ask that the library submit these materials for reallocation, but given the likelihood of all copies of the era being in poor conditions, we request that the library attempt to purchase a modern reprint and move the retention to that new OCLC #.

As for HathiTrust public domain copies, if the library is willing to do validation of the digital surrogate against the print it may be possible for that to stand in place of materials that are too damaged to retain. As of spring 2021 we are still in the process of investigating and documenting the procedures for this. Please contact us for more information.