HathiTrust Digital Library
What is in the HathiTrust Digital Library?
The HathiTrust Digital Library started with the collection of the University of Michigan Library, which was digitized by the Google Books Project. Since then the Digital Library has grown to include collections digitized from other partner libraries and research institutions as well as collections from other digital projects like the Internet Archive.
Full-text access and downloading is available for those items in the public domain, including:
- US federal government documents
- Works published before 1923
- Works still protected by copyright, but made available to HathiTrust with the permission of the copyright holder
The number of works in the HathiTrust Digital Library is large and ever-increasing. Currently digitized as of August 2018:
- 16,468,932 total volumes
- 8,016,383 book titles
- 442,413 serial titles
- 5,764,126,200 pages
- 738 terabytes
- 195 miles
- 13,381 tons
- 6,226,134 volumes(~38% of total) in the public domain
Google Books vs. HathiTrust
Comparison of the Google Books Project with HathiTrust:
|
Features |
Google Books Project | HathiTrust |
| Numbers | 20 million items and growing | 10 million items and growing |
| Content Type | books, journals, magazines, reports, and govenment documents | books, journals, magazines, reports, and govenment documents |
| Organization | Google owns the Google Book Project and decides how to manage it | partnership of libraries and institutions, with membership and shared governance |
| Full Text Search | full text search within all the content; browse to sections containing the search terms | full text search within all the content; pages where terms are found are displayed |
| Full Text Download | full text download of the whole item for those items that are out of copyright | full text download for members of HT of the whole item for those items that are out of copyright |
| Copyright status | does not work on identifying copyright status of "orphan" works | has worked on identifying copyright status of "orphan" works |
|
WorldCat Records |
MARC records in WorldCat that lead to the project's "landing page" ; there will sometimes be duplicate records; leads to links to holidng libraries | MARC records in WorldCat that lead to the project's "landing page" ; there will sometimes be duplicate records; leads to links to holidng libraries |
| Long term archiving and reformatting as needed of full text | Not a key part of the mission | Is a key part of the mission |
| Replacement of library material | Not a source of replacements for missing library materials |
Is a source of replacements for missing library materials, under US Copyright Section 108 |
Thanks to Barbara DeFelice and William Fontaine of Dartmouth College for this chart.
Unique Items in HathiTrust
In addition to their informational value, many items in HathiTrust have interest as historical, cultural, or archival objects. This Civil War era diary of Lucius L. Shattuck stopped a bullet and the damage can be traced deep into the book. The original can be found in the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan.