PALNI joins EAST to support shared print preservation

INDIANAPOLIS—The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) is pleased to announce its membership in the Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (EAST), a national shared print program dedicated to preserving and ensuring long-term access to scholarly print materials. By working with EAST, PALNI strengthens its commitment to deep collaboration and external partnerships while advancing the responsible stewardship of academic resources for students, faculty, and researchers across its 24 supported institutions and beyond.

“I am so pleased to welcome PALNI and its 24 supported libraries to EAST. With PALNI’s membership, EAST enters its 16th state and my own home state of Indiana,” says Tina Baich, EAST Director. “EAST now has nearly 200 members, working collaboratively to safeguard the print scholarly record and make it available to current and future researchers, students, and teachers.”

“Joining EAST allows PALNI-supported libraries to both contribute to and benefit from a broader network of shared print materials,” says Kirsten Leonard, PALNI Executive Director. “Our membership strengthens the security of academic collections and expands access to critical scholarly resources for our campuses and the wider academic community. By leveraging the expertise of the staff of the EAST organization and the scale of its membership, PALNI institutions gain both efficiency and scale.”

This membership builds on a collaborative collection analysis project launched in January between PALNI and EAST. The project assessed PALNI’s circulating print holdings in relation to the EAST collective collection, laying the foundation for PALNI’s participation and providing insights into shared retention and preservation priorities. PALNI’s goals included demonstrating the value of its shared collection, advancing collaborative management, and ensuring effective long-term preservation.

As part of its membership in EAST, four PALNI schools—Butler University, Concordia Theological Seminary, St. Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology, and Wabash College—will participate as Retention Partners, committed to retaining agreed-upon titles in their local collections and making these titles available to other EAST members through its lending network. An additional 20 PALNI institutions will serve as Supporting Partners, gaining access to EAST’s distributed shared print collection and contributing to a strengthened cooperative lending network.

To learn more about EAST, visit www.eastlibraries.org. For more about PALNI and its supported libraries, visit www.palni.org.

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About Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (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 nearly 200 academic and research institutions spanning 16 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. For more information, visit https://eastlibraries.org/.

About the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana

The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) is a non-profit organization that supports collaboration for library and information services for 24 colleges, universities, and seminaries throughout the state. From its inception in 1992, the PALNI collaboration has been a key avenue for its supported institutions to contain costs while providing more effective library services. More recently, PALNI has adopted a model of deep collaboration that pools resources and people as a tool to expand services while containing costs. Simultaneously, PALNI is expanding collaboration within its institutions and with external library partners to address challenges and build cost-effective services. Visit www.palni.org for more information.

PALNI Supported Institutions

Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary | Anderson University | Bethel University | Butler University | Concordia Theological Seminary | Christian Theological Seminary | DePauw University | Earlham College | Franklin College | Goshen College | Grace College | Hanover College | Huntington University | Manchester University | Marian University | Oakland City University | University of Saint Francis | Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College | Saint Mary’s College | Saint Meinrad’s Seminary and School of Theology | Taylor University | Trine University | University of Indianapolis | Wabash College