December 5, 2025 – The Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (EAST) is pleased to announce Ohio University Libraries (OU Libraries) as its newest member and its first in the State of Ohio. OU Libraries join as a Retention Partner and will be working with the EAST Program Team to identify their items for retention. As an EAST Retention Partner, OU Libraries will also have access to the EAST Lending Network, which includes nearly 200 libraries in the eastern United States. This network supports borrowing and lending via libraries’ standard interlibrary loan services.
Rob Ross, Dean of Ohio University Libraries, said “Ohio University Libraries is pleased to join EAST in its mission to secure the print scholarly record. As an R1 academic library, membership in EAST will enable us to hone our collection development strategy and ensure enduring access to the print materials our communities rely on for teaching and research. As a founding member of OhioLINK, Ohio University Libraries believes in the collective power of libraries to preserve access to knowledge through cooperative collaboration. We look forward to working with our new partner libraries at EAST to further this goal.”
Tina Baich, EAST Director, stated, “EAST looks forward to working with Ohio University Libraries to support their overall collection strategies and current deaccessioning project. This is what shared print is all about – securing access while ensuring unique materials within a library’s collection are preserved.”
Libraries interested in joining EAST can visit https://eastlibraries.org/about-us/joining-east/ for more information.
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Contacts:
EAST: Tina Baich, Director, tbaich@eastlibraries.org
About EAST
EAST’s mission is to secure the print scholarly record in support of teaching, learning, and research. It does so through the collaborative effort of more than 170 academic and research institutions spanning 15 states to document, protect, and provide long-term access to their print collections. By ensuring that scholarly content across the libraries is retained locally on behalf of all EAST members, faculty, students, and scholars can have confidence that they will have ongoing access to these resources through the EAST Lending Network. Today, more than 11 million books and 37,000 journal titles are protected through the EAST collective collection.
About Ohio University Libraries
Ohio University Libraries advances the University’s strategy by providing equitable access to credible resources, evolving services, and welcoming environments. Our expertise empowers users by building information literacy and supporting research, creative, and publication activities. Ohio University Libraries will serve as a dynamic hub of transformative learning, research, discovery, preservation, and engagement. A member of the Association of Research Libraries, The Center for Research Libraries, and a founding member of OhioLINK, University Libraries facilities include the Vernon R. Alden Library – one of the most heavily used buildings on the Athens Campus; the Music and Dance Library; the Regional Campus Libraries and the Southeast Ohio Regional Depository. The Libraries boasts world-class collections that build upon our strong traditions of academic, research and service excellence that reflects the University’s strengths, its history and its global focus.