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HathiTrust, CDL, WEST Pilot to Enhance Shared Print Collaboration Across Libraries

Pilot Status – Ongoing

What’s Happening Now?

The Pilot Project Team has finished the first development milestone and has laid the groundwork for much of the rest of the pilot.

Introduction

HathiTrust, the Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST), and the California Digital Library (CDL) are excited to partner on a pilot to enable greater cross-program collaboration in shared print. All three organizations are committed to fostering the technical and social infrastructure to enable an exchange of services, data, and resources within the shared print eco-system. Approximately 40 libraries are members of both HathiTrust and WEST, which includes all 10 University of California Libraries.

While there is considerable overlap amongst the libraries who retain print collections on behalf of the HathiTrust, WEST, and UC shared print programs, there is no easy way for libraries to see their own commitments and those of their partners across all three programs. The goal of this pilot is to successfully ingest and make available HathiTrust monographic shared print data in AGUA, a web-based service that currently supports serial shared print workflows for WEST and the University of California Libraries, which will allow the libraries and program staff to track and manage commitments on one platform.

Benefits

  • Enhances the sustainability, visibility, and impact of shared print across all three
    organizations
  • Provides libraries with a one-stop platform to access data on their own commitments (both
    serial and monograph) and those of partner libraries
  • Sets the stage for harmonizing shared print workflows, timelines, and decision-making to
    reduce the workload on libraries that participate in or wish to participate in multiple
    programs

Participating Institutions

  • HathiTrust
  • CDL
  • WEST

Timeline

  • Sept. 2024 – December 2025 – HathiTrust, WEST, and CDL gathered information by
    reviewing technical landscapes, scoping use cases, collecting stakeholder input, and writing
    functional requirements. Established a cost-share model and sustainability plan.
  • Summer 2025 – Partners approved the pilot proposal.
  • December 2025 – Pilot Launch Announcement
  • January 2026 – Pilot Kick-Off!