Holly Mercer, senior associate dean at the University Libraries, has been elected to the HathiTrust Board of Governors for 2019.

HathiTrust is a partnership of major academic and research libraries collaborating in a digital library initiative to preserve and provide access to the published record in digital form. The member libraries aim to build a comprehensive archive of published literature from around the world and to develop shared strategies for managing and developing their digital and print holdings in a collaborative way.

Since HathiTrust’s launch in 2008, member libraries have contributed more than five trillion pages of digitized book and journal content from their collections. When the University of Tennessee joined HathiTrust in 2014, the UT Libraries gained a trusted repository for the long-term preservation of its holdings as well as persistent access to the digital collections. UT students, faculty, and staff gained online access to millions of public domain titles not already in UT’s collections.

As senior associate dean, Mercer oversees the libraries’ technology infrastructure, access to collections, and digital projects, as well as publishing and open access initiatives. The UT Libraries is a national leader in the creation of significant digital collections and in support of open access though its digital repository, Trace. Mercer also serves on the boards of the Islandora Foundation and the Open Repositories Steering Committee.