Libraries

The Libraries of the Big Ten Academic Alliance are aligned in the vision of uniting our separate collections into one collection, shared and fully networked: the BIG Collection. By this phrase we mean a holistic and comprehensive understanding of what a library "collection" is: not simply the things we hold, but our services; our people; our expertise; our technology; and our infrastructure.

In advancing this future of interdependence and excellence, we are guided by our North Star in everything that we do:

In order to advance a just, trustworthy, scalable & sustainable open knowledge ecosystem, make open, more equitable scholarship our lead purpose.

On these pages, you'll find more about the services, programs, and community that are advancing this vision in a principles-centered, mission-driven, values-aligned way.

Academy Owned Scholarly Publishing Landscape Report

Launched in the fall of 2022, the Big Ten Academic Alliance [BTAA] landscape assessment of academy owned scholarly publishing activities explores the shared challenges and opportunities facing publishing programs and operations within the Big Ten institutions.

Big Ten Open Books

Big Ten Open Books connects readers everywhere to fully accessible, trusted books from leading university presses. Established as a new model for open-access publishing focused on equity and inclusion, we invite you to explore our Gender and Sexuality studies collection.

BIG Collection: Resource Access Policy Harmonization Report

The Resource Access Policy Harmonization pilot team is pleased to share their final report. Aspirational in nature, the report includes the new BTAA Resource Sharing Agreement plus Scanning Standards; reaffirms the Principles and Protocols for Sharing Special Collections within the Big Ten; and articulates important next steps for future pilot projects and working group investigations.

Library News

Library Accessibility Alliance Announces New Website & Expanded Resources

Aug 23, 2021, 11:32 AM

Members of the Library Accessibility Alliance (LAA) are pleased to announce their new website, featuring enhancements to the popular accessibility evaluations of databases, along with an expanded collection of resources.

The new website provides a critical platform for the collective’s 2021 priorities: sharing the results from accessibility testing of library e-resources, offering assessments of previous LAA work, providing robust collections of training and related resources, as well as a new White Paper that is an examination of the efforts of e-resource accessibility testing through 2020.

“The Big Ten Academic Alliance is proud to be partnering with our consortial colleagues in launching the new Library Accessibility Alliance Website,” stated Rob Van Rennes, Associate Director, Library Initiatives at the Big Ten Academic Alliance. “Collaboration lies at the heart of our work and the new LAA website embodies the principles that we value.”

Amy Drayer, User Interface Developer at the University of Minnesota Libraries, described the revised access to e-resource accessibility reports: "The testing group was doing amazing work creating accessibility awareness and providing opportunities to vendors to improve their product. What we needed was to make the reports themselves more intuitive to help inform the library community of these efforts. By extracting data, we could make the work more meaningful from more perspectives.”

Stephanie Rosen, Library Accessibility Strategist at the University of Michigan, said: “The Library Accessibility Alliance is a powerful combination of existing organizations, now representing about 100 member libraries. The new website is a more accessible platform that makes our evaluations of vendor e-resources more understandable and usable for our community. It will also be the launch pad for the LAA’s growing work in training, advocacy, and other areas related to library accessibility.”

The Library Accessibility Alliance (LAA) promotes equitable service and access to libraries and library resources. The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) formed the Library E-Resource Accessibility Group in 2015 to address concerns about the accessibility of library e-resources. In 2019, the Association of Southern Research Libraries (ASERL) partnered with the BTAA creating the Library Accessibility Alliance. In 2021, the Greater Western Library Alliance and the Washington Research Library Consortium also joined the effort. As the composition of the group has grown, the scope of work has also expanded to multiple areas in support of library accessibility.