The Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust  [EAST] is a shared print retention partnership of college and university libraries. The mission of EAST is to ensure scholars, including faculty and students, have access to the scholarly record of print monographs and print journals and serials through multi-library collaborative arrangements that ensure copies of even infrequently used materials are retained in sufficient number to be readily available.  While electronic copies of many of these materials are increasingly accessible and may more conveniently meet many scholarly needs, the occasional need for access to print copies requires collaborative agreements among libraries to ensure that individual collection management decisions do not eliminate materials to the detriment of scholarly needs.

EAST was originally funded by the Andrew W. Mellon and Davis Educational Foundations. The BLC acts as the the project's fiscal and organizational host. Further details about EAST, including current members and initiatives, are available on the EAST website.