Libraries

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
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

  • The Big Ten Academic Alliance joins Direct to Open from the MIT Press

    Jul 21, 2021, 13:51 PM

    The MIT Press and the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) have entered a three-year collective action agreement that provides Direct to Open (D2O) access for all fifteen BTAA member libraries. An innovative, sustainable framework for open access monographs, D2O moves professional and scholarly books from a solely market-based, purchase model to a collaborative, library-supported open access model.

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  • BTAA Joins Open Library of Humanities

    Jul 19, 2021, 11:18 AM

    The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) and the Open Library of Humanities (OLH) have signed a three-year collective agreement that provides multi-year support for OLH from all of the BTAA’s fifteen member libraries. This move was made possible thanks to the OLH Open Consortial Offer, an initiative that offers consortia, societies, networks and scholarly projects the opportunity to join the Open Library of Humanities Library Partnership Subsidy system as a bloc, enabling each institution to benefit from a discount.

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  • Maurice York Appointed Director of Library Initiatives

    May 5, 2020, 11:00 AM

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  • Big Ten Academic Alliance and ASERL partner to form Library Accessibility Alliance

    Jan 7, 2020, 11:44 AM

    The Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) and the Big Ten Academic Alliance have created a new name for their recent partnership to advance accessibility for library electronic resources. Now called the “Library Accessibility Alliance” (LAA), the program seeks to ensure all library users have equitable access to information.

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  • BTAA and ASERL Announce Library Accessibility Partnership

    Aug 1, 2019, 09:34 AM

    The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) and the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) have entered into a two-year partnership to advance accessibility for library electronic resources, with the goal of providing equal access to information for all library users. Since 2016, the BTAA has been conducting third-party evaluations of electronic resource platforms and collections, publicly posting the evaluations for review by vendors and libraries.

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  • Sustaining Values and Scholarship: A Statement by the Provosts of the Big Ten Academic Alliance

    Jun 10, 2019, 09:49 AM

    The Big Ten Academic Alliance continues its advocacy for a sustainable and open ecosystem of publication. Collectively, our institutions’ more than 50,000 faculty are supported by over $10 billion (2017) in research funding, and our institutions have similarly invested significantly in our capacity to further our missions to advance knowledge. Together, we produce roughly 15% of the research publications in the United States.

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  • Big Ten Academic Alliance Cooperative Cataloging Partnership receives ALCTS Collaboration Award

    Feb 27, 2018, 10:43 AM

    The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) has selected the Big Ten Academic Alliance Cooperative Cataloging Partnership (BTAA CCP) as the recipient of the ALCTS Outstanding Collaboration Citation for 2018.

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  • Strength in Numbers: Building a Consortial Cooperative Cataloging Partnership

    Oct 23, 2017, 11:13 AM

    Librarians across the Big Ten Academic Alliance are collaborating to provide greater access to cross-institutional collections through a strategic effort to supplement cataloging capacity.

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  • Mark Sandler wins 2017 Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award

    Feb 2, 2017, 12:01 PM

    Mark Sandler, former Big Ten Academic Alliance Director of Library Initiatives, has been awarded the 2017 Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award.

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  • CIC's Rebecca Crist on Collaborative Stewardship of Shared Collections

    May 4, 2016, 10:04 AM

    A new monograph explores how libraries and the organizations that provide services to them are devoting more attention to system-wide organization of collections—whether the "system" is a consortium, a region or a country.

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