The Johns Hopkins University Libraries have become the newest member of HathiTrust, a partnership of major academic and research libraries collaborating in an extraordinary digital library initiative to preserve and provide access to the published record in digital form.
Launched in 2008, HathiTrust has a growing membership currently comprising more than two dozen partners. Over the last two years, the partners have contributed more than 7 million volumes to the digital library, digitized from their library collections through various means, including Google and Internet Archive digitization and in-house initiatives. More than 1.6 million of the contributed volumes are in the public domain and freely available on the Web.
What does this new partnership mean for my research?
Just ask Dean Winston Tabb! “This membership enhances our ability to deliver content to our users, who will now be able to access full-text PDFs of public domain materials via HathiTrust and through the university online catalog.”
As a service for partners and a public good, HathiTrust offers persistent access to the digital collections. This includes viewing, downloading, and searching access to public domain volumes, and searching access to in-copyright volumes. Specialized features are also available to facilitate access by persons with print disabilities and to allow users to gather subsets of the digital library into “collections” that can be searched and browsed.
So how do I access this new wealth of materials?
Johns Hopkins’ initial role as part of HathiTrust will center on the development of infrastructure, such as storage systems, and services that will allow for seamless integration with the university’s library catalog. Currently, HathiTrust can be accessed via our A-Z list and requires logging in with your JHED ID and password. This FAQ on copyright explains what can and can’t be accessed in full text once in HathiTrust.
Great, thank you JHU libraries for putting this together for us! I agree, this is exciting for jhu.
So will JHU libraries online catalog results, and also FindIt results, include a link to Hathi if the item is available there? For instance, when I search for Achille Mbembe’s “On the Postcolony” in the JHU online catalog, there is a link to ACLS where it is available as an ebook. Same in FindIt. Will Hathi be similarly integrated into JHU libraries catalog and FindIt results?
I ask because I think the true strength of access to new and expanded ebook databases like Hathi is integrating the results with print-copy book results (such as MSE holdings). From the perspective of searching for a specific book title, doing that search in multiple places is less desirable.
Relatedly, would you consider creating a page like this one at Columbia (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/ebooks/), or perhaps a future blog post, where you list or describe strategies for finding ebooks in general?
Many thanks for all your help on our behalf!
Thank you for your very good questions! I’m consolidating replies from staff members that should answer these questions.
First, regarding Find It, yes, Find It results will attempt to include a link to HathiTrust when available, but might miss some. As Find It is pulled into the catalog, you’ll see HathiTrust links in the catalog record. See for example this record https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/catalog/bib_1740445 (which also previews our new catalog interface, coming in beta on March 18). For Find It to display a HathiTrust link, we do need to have the book in print.
Second, our Technical Services staff will be loading records for HathiTrust into the catalog so full-text, public domain titles that are in HathiTrust but we don’t have in print will also be discoverable. That is coming in the future, though. Please note that currently, what we have access to in HathiTrust is full text of public domain items (pre-1923). Books that are still in copyright can be discovered there but full-text is not available.
Kristin Bernet, one of our librarians at the DC/Montgomery Centers, is leading a group that’s creating a guide for e-books that will be in our guides architecture here: http://guides.library.jhu.edu/
I hope this reply answers your questions, but if not, feel free to let us know!
Ellen Keith
Research Services