UCM
Alden Library
Ohio University Libraries is one of the newer members of HathiTrust, a global collaboration of libraries seeking preserve the cultural record in the future. HathiTrust is made up of more than 200 member libraries that have created a repository of 17.4 million volumes in their digital library.
As Janet Hulm, assistant dean for collections and digitization strategies put it, HathiTrust is a "collective of academic and research libraries that make their text volumes accessible online."
Ohio University faculty, staff and students will now be able to view and download full-text files of all materials in the public domain and creative commons licensed volumes in the HathiTrust collection and will have the ability to search by text copyrighted materials.
According to the Libraries task force that recommended HathiTrust membership, its “focus on academic collaboration to promote research and scholarship through the preservation and access of member-contributed content aligns with the Libraries' priorities. University Libraries to maintain a robust physical collection while providing their users with access beyond their print holdings. "
Regarding the implementation of HathiTrust in University Libraries, the OHIO community now has access to the Printed digital versions of the materials held by University Libraries, which have been digitized by a HathiTrust member. University Libraries will also have the option to digitize and deposit new texts in HathiTrust to increase access to those materials and preserve them for the future.
“If someone else has digitized a book and the Bibliot Once they have that book in print, we will be able to access the online version through HathiTrust, ”Hulm explained. "There are also opportunities to collaborate with other libraries to ensure retention of the print, where some libraries would agree to keep the printed version of a book … and the digitized version could remain available to all."
HathiTrust's mission, according to its website, "is to contribute to research, scholarship and the common good by collecting, organizing, preserving, communicating and sharing human knowledge." The organization emphasizes the use of open access materials and offers access to 6.5 million volumes that are in the public domain of the United States and freely available online, in addition to the resources held by the Libraries.
HathiTrust's emphasis on open access and sharing of materials will not only increase accessibility to resources at OHIO, but will also provide access to its specialized functions for people with print disabilities, which aligns with the strategic goals of the OHIO. libraries to make their resources more inclusive and explore new collaborative opportunities to connect with a wide range of communities.
“There are special services for people with disabilities to print, so that we can provide digitized content to them,” Hulm said, then added that “[The Libraries] can make requests for full volumes of copyrighted content for people with accessibility adaptations ".
HathiTrust also offers specific research resources, such as access to the HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC), which may be particularly useful for research students and faculty interested in digital scholarship research involving text data mining. The HTRC includes "state-of-the-art software tools and cyber infrastructure" created to help researchers perform computational analysis on the entire HathiTrust corpus.
According to Hulm, the research component who executes the analysis will be of specific interest to teachers and graduate students two conducting digital scholarships.
“I am delighted that the Ohio University Libraries are now members of HathiTrust and its global community of research libraries,” said Neil Romanosky, Dean of University Libraries. “This membership has so many benefits for our students and faculty: access and preservation of content, support for research in the digital humanities and other digital scholarships, and an option to access digital copies of our copyrighted print collections during some situations of emergency, to name just a few. HathiTrust is a great example of a collaborative library that promotes teaching, research and learning on a large scale. "
For more information on HathiTrust, contact Janet Hulm.
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