Access to HathiTrust

Where’s the search interface to all of the content in HathiTrust?

In April, 2009 HathiTrust released a temporary beta catalog, offering bibliographic searching (title, author, subject, ISBN, publisher, and year of publication) and faceted browsing of all items in the Library. Please visit the catalog for information on getting started with HathiTrust search and saving publicly and privately accessible collections of HathiTrust materials. You can also get started by typing a search term in the Catalog Search box above. Full-text search of all items in the Library is not yet available, but full-text searching options are available via the HathiTrust Experimental Search, within individual HathiTrust items, or from within a public or private collection. See the "Getting Started" menu in the HathiTrust catalog for more information.  

Why is the catalog "temporary"?

This discovery catalog is a temporary interface to HathiTrust, pending the release of a permanent catalog that is being developed by OCLC in conjunction with the HathiTrust partners (projected for release in 2010). Up-to-date information on the planning and development of the permanent catalog can be found on the HathiTrust-OCLC Catalog Project Blog.

Are there other options for searching HathiTrust content?

Yes! We have made it possible for institutions to load bibliographic records for public domain materials in HathiTrust into their own catalogs, and to access limited metadata for other materials. Libraries are thus able to make full-text volumes from HathiTrust available through their local catalogs. Several institutions that have already done this are listed below. Instructions on how to load bibliographic records are available on the Data Distribution and APIs page.

  • The University of Michigan loads all records for HathiTrust into Mirlyn, its library catalog. It is possible to restrict a search in Mirlyn to materials in HathiTrust only through a dedicated portion of the catalog.

  • The University of Chicago Library adds records for public domain materials into their discovery system, Lens.

  • Johns Hopkins University has embedded links to books from several sources, including HathiTrust, Google Book Search, and the Internet Archive, into their online catalog. See http://bibwild.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/umlaut-digital-book/ for an explanation of how it works.

  • Records from HathiTrust and Project Gutenberg are available through the catalog of The National Library of Australia. HathiTrust records are also searchable through the National Library of Australia's Trove service.

  • Indiana University Libraries links to all HathiTrust content through the HathiTrust API. You can find HathiTrust content by searching their online catalog, IUCat.

  • Public Domain HathiTrust volumes are now available through the Prospector Union Catalog, serving 23 academic, public, and special libraries in Colorado and Wyoming.

  • As of October 2009, HathiTrust records are available in the Ball State University Catalog.
  • Public Domain records can be found in the catalog of the TriUniveristy Group of Libraries (TUG), a collaborative initiative of the University of Guelph, the University of Waterloo, and Wilfrid Laurier University.

In addition, the following are examples of tools others are creating using the HathiTrust API and HathiTrust metadata files (described on the Data Distribution and APIs page.

 

Additional Access Mechanisms for HathiTrust

HathiTrust provides a baseline of access tools for content in the repository and works with participating libraries to define, prioritize, and develop other tools and services. Additionally, HathiTrust works to elaborate an open service definition to make it possible for participating libraries to develop other secure access mechanisms. Access mechanisms for content in the repository currently include:

Global searching

Development of full-text searching capabilities for the entire repository is complete. The portal to full-text search can be reached at http://catalog.hathitrust.org. More can be read about our efforts in this area at http://www.hathitrust.org/large_scale_search and on the Large-Scale Search Blog

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Page turner

Individual volumes (when confirmed to be in the public domain) can be viewed and searched through a page turner. Pages are rendered as native browser files and PDFs; OCR is also viewable when the work is in the public domain.

Collection builder

A Collection Builder provides the ability for end-users and collection development staff to create and “publish” virtual collections of volumes held in the repository. A UM-specific version was released in mid-2008. Generalization (e.g., ties into non-UM authentication mechanisms) will be specified in conjunction with participating libraries.

Access mechanisms for users with print disabilities

The University of Michigan has developed and is testing a mechanism to support additional access for users with print disabilities. HathiTrust will work with participating libraries to design and implement a generalized version (i.e., a version that works with multiple institutions) of these mechanisms.

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