Shared Print Program

Shared Print Program

The Big Ten Academic Alliance’s Shared Print Collection is a key focus of the work to unite the collections of the Big Ten university libraries moving toward the goal of “one collection, shared, and fully networked.” Bringing BTAA shared print collections to a new scale enables the member libraries to make their existing print collections more durable and accessible. Creating the largest shared print collection in North America offers opportunities to shape the broader landscape of shared print and lead in creating new value for users and the libraries managing print content into the future.

An ongoing programmatic commitment 

The BTAA Shared Print Collection is a core operational focus for the Library Initiative engaging leadership and support from BTAA staff, governance groups, and employees in member libraries. No longer time-limited, the Shared Print Collection works to expand the print segment of the Knowledge Commons making the shared collection findable and usable, durable and trustworthy, open and just, and inclusive and collaborative. 

Indiana University and the University of Illinois

The Shared Print Collection reflects sustainable approaches that incorporate the two SPRs and expands to distributed collections that include monographs and serials. It engages in increasing the persistence and access of items that are uniquely as well as widely held.  

Building infrastructures to advance the Shared Print Collection

The Shared Print Collection will require ongoing development and implementation of a range of community, social, service-based, and technological infrastructures.

Essential community infrastructure, Shared Print Collection Groups range from governance bodies to task-focused and ad hoc groups.

Collection analytics is a core capacity for shared print.  Bringing together the full holdings of member libraries and providing an overlay of tools, reporting, and visualizations for bibliographic analysis and comparative holdings of member collections in all formats with MARC records, the BTAA Collection Analysis Tool is an unprecedented  infrastructure available to anyone working in a member library.

Further service and infrastructure developments that will advance the work of the Shared Print Collection are being incubated through the Big Collection Pilot Projects that focus on fulfillment, decision support, and knowledge management.