Report from the Joint Rosemont Shared Print Alliance / Partnership for Shared Book Collections Member Meeting

The Rosemont Shared Print Alliance and the Partnership for Shared Book Collections held their first annual joint membership meeting Feb 8, 2022. This meeting was grounded in an overarching theme that “Shared Print is open and big,” which weaved through the presentations and breakout room discussions. After a brief welcome from Susan Stearns of the Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust, the 2022 Executive Committee Chairs from both organizations, Michael Levine-Clark (University of Denver, for Rosemont) and Daniel Dollar (Yale University, for the Partnership), provided opening remarks and brief updates on initiatives and working groups. They also reflected on how the organizations’ efforts align with trends in the broader community, operationalizing the principles of the CDL, CRL, and HathiTrust Collaboration to establish strong connections and partnerships between the shared print community, library service providers, and library practitioners.

The opening remarks were followed by a panel discussion on Open Doors, Open Infrastructure, Open Data, and Open Access. In this panel, three leaders in the field reflected on the “current work that they’re engaged in [to] help us collectively understand the challenges and opportunities in this space, and …where things are going.” This 45 minute discussion traced the changing definition of “openness” in the library and shared print community, and how expanding definitions of openness provide opportunities for the Shared Print community to connect with parallel discussions about the role of ownership and access to the scholarly and academic communities.

The third section of the meeting was devoted to breakout rooms, where attendees could discuss topics through the lens of the overarching meeting theme. These breakout discussions offered opportunities for shared print experts and shared print newcomers to discuss together areas of significant interest and how they intersect with other areas in the library community.

The main slide deck, meeting notes, breakout room notes, and recording of the main session are available for review on the Rosemont website: https://rosemontsharedprintalliance.org/joint-rosemont-partnership-member-meeting