We understand that EAST is a member of the Rosemont Shared Print Alliance. What exactly is Rosemont?
The Rosemont Shared Print Alliance is a collaboration of regional programs interested in coordinating their efforts on a larger scale to ensure the retention of and access to print journal backfiles. The current participants are the:
Big Ten Academic Alliance Shared Print Repository (CICBTAA-SPR)
Center for Research Libraries (CRL)
Eastern Academic Scholars' Trust (EAST)
Florida Academic Libraries Repository (FLARE)
Scholars Trust
Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST)
EAST representatives sit on the
Rosemont Operations Committee and Executive Committee. For a description of Rosemont’s goals and activities see the Alliance’s
Strategic Directions.
How do I know which libraries are members of EAST and Rosemont?
A list of EAST and Rosemont member libraries can be found on the
Rosemont website.
Are we required to provide free lending to our fellow EAST Serials and Journals Retention Partners and Rosemont members?
No. While we strongly encourage a policy of free lending between EAST Serials and Journals Retention Partners and Rosemont members, libraries may use their own institutional policies to fulfill requests, including charging fees (see EAST’s
Best Practices for ILL).
Are EAST Serials and Journals Retention Partners expected to provide physical delivery of items to our fellow EAST and Rosemont members?
No, electronic delivery is preferable, followed in preference by facsimiles of the original, and then physical delivery of volumes or issues on a case-by-case basis.
Are we required to lend titles we haven't committed to retain?
Serials and Journals Retention Partners agree to make EAST retained materials available for circulation to other EAST and Rosemont libraries. We support a principle of extending those borrowing privileges as broadly as possible, rather than limiting lending to EAST retained materials.
Are EAST Serials and Journals Retention Partners expected to lend monographs as well as serial and journal titles to Rosemont members?
No, the Rosemont Shared Print Alliance is focussed solely on serials and journals retention. As such, the expectation to make material accessible to fellow Rosemont members and the associated
Rosemont Access Principles only applies to serial and journal titles, not print monographs. As with all access, however, EAST encourages the member libraries to lend broadly across its circulating collection.
Our library is not a EAST Serials and Journals Retention Partner. Are we still expected to provide access to our serials and journals collection to EAST and Rosemont partners?
No, while we encourage all libraries to provide access to their collections, there are no requirements for “monograph only” EAST Retention Partners to make their serial and journal holdings available to other EAST or Rosemont Shared Print Alliance members.
Are we required to continue collecting issues of a title we’ve retained for EAST?
No, libraries are not required to continue collecting issues of title they’ve retained for EAST, but we do ask that libraries consider filling gaps in their holdings if they are contacted by other EAST libraries wishing to withdraw issues or volumes of the title.
What are EAST's gap filling policies and procedures?
We’ve added more issues of a serial and journal title we are retaining for EAST, are we expected to extend our EAST commitment to these newer issues?
No, the EAST retention commitment is only to the issues the library held at the time of agreeing commitment not to any future issues. Any libraries that voluntarily decides to extend the retention commitment to newly acquired issues should follow
EAST guidance for updating the holdings statement in their local ILS and PAPR/OCLC.
Are we expected to replace lost or damaged serial and journal issues?
No, replacement is not required for these material types, but EAST members are encouraged to donate their copies to Retention Partners to help fill gaps and should always inform the EAST Project Team when a title or volume is no longer being retained.
Are EAST commitments for serials and journals currently recorded in OCLC WorldCat?
Yes. Retention partners are either registering this data themselves, or relying on CRL to sync registration data from PAPR to OCLC.
How can we identify which serial and journal titles our library and other EAST members have committed to EAST?
Per EAST policy, EAST members are expected to record their commitments in their local ILS (guidance for adding commitments is available in
EAST Member Resources). Consult with your local Technical Services staff on how to identify retained material in your ILS. EAST commitments are also recorded in the
Print Archives and Preservation Registry (PAPR), alongside commitments from the major shared print programs in North America, including our fellow Rosemont Shared Print Alliance members. Note that PAPR also hosts a
Collection Comparison Tool which allows for an upload of a list of local record numbers to generate an instant comparison with the PAPR archived titles registry. Retention commitments are also visible in OCLC's Connexion, Record/Collection Manager, FirstSearch and various APIs. See the "
Functionality across services" doc for descriptions of how to find Shared Print in each of these services.
Why did EAST decide to first focus on titles held by 4-6 EAST Serials and Journals Retention Partners?
The first group of titles the Working Group focused on included titles held by 4-6 of the participating libraries. These “medium rare” title were felt to be most at risk of loss from the collective collection as libraries moved on to withdrawing these titles, having already weeded more widely-held titles. Additionally, as only three libraries were allocated responsibility for each title this model provided withdrawal opportunities at those libraries that were not allocated a retention commitment.
What material is out of scope for EAST serials and journals retention?
reference works | monographic series |
guides | government documents |
newspapers | directories |
JSTOR titles | loose-leaf reference works |
handbooks | almanacs |
non-print formats | yearbooks |
indexes | fact books |
How were serial and journal titles assigned for EAST retention?
Using collection comparison reports produced by the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), a Serials & Journals Working Group analyzed the collections of the participating EAST libraries and considering factors such as holdings levels within EAST, OCLC WorldCat holding levels, JSTOR availability, format, commitments from other shared print programs, and subjects agreed on a set of
retention models. These models were approved by Voting Members at participating libraries and the EAST Executive Committee. CRL applied the retention rules to the collective collection and allocated retention responsibility to individual libraries, which then had the opportunity to review their retention proposals and report which specific titles they would agree to retain.
How did EAST go about analyzing serial and journal titles?
EAST contracted with the the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) to carry out a comparison of participating libraries’ serials and journals collections. CRL provided spreadsheet reports which showed holdings overlap, subjects, languages, electronic availability, OCLC WorldCat holdings, availability in JSTOR, format, and retention commitments from other shared print programs (including Rosemont). This data was loaded into the visualization software Tableau to assist the EAST Serials and Journals Working Group in analyzing the data.
We’ve received our retention proposal for serial and journal titles: are we required to check our shelves to validate that the titles are present?
No, we understand that it’s not feasible for all EAST members to carry out such work. However, based on the experiences of those libraries that have carried out shelf checks it can be useful to confirm that you actually own a title you are committing to retain, that the physical holdings match those recorded in the ILS (and submitted for the collection analysis), and material is in a usable/readable condition. Validation levels can be recorded in the 583 field.
Guidance for carrying out validation (both at the volume and issue level) can be found in our Member Resources.
We noticed a JSTOR title in our list of serials retentions, how should we proceed?
Titles available in JSTOR are out of scope for EAST Serials Retentions, so your institution is not obligated to retain these titles in print on behalf of EAST, unless your institution has explicitly decided to do so, e.g. the Five Colleges Inc. You may remove retention commitments from OCLC for these titles, and notify EAST that they should be removed from PAPR. We encourage you to use the
CRL Comparison Tool to identify any gaps in the CRL, Harvard or University of California JSTOR print archives that you may be able to fill.