Community

The primary designated community of HathiTrust is comprised of the members (faculty, students or users) of the institutions represented by the libraries participating in HathiTrust. By extension, meeting the needs of this designated community will ensure that HathiTrust meets the needs of research libraries and their institutions more generally. We believe that, in collecting, organizing, preserving, communicating and sharing these records of human knowledge to our primary designated community, we will also be meeting many needs of the larger public.

See Partnership for information about how to get invovled!

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FAQ

Are the materials open to everyone?

Works in the public domain in HathiTrust are open to all researchers—whoever and wherever they may be. Content in HathiTrust will be discoverable through online search technologies within the repository and through Google, with no authentication, login, or password required. As it becomes possible to expand access to the materials through permissions or other agreements, other materials will be made available. HathiTrust has already been contacted by some rights holders wishing to provide broader access to their content.

The research collections of partner libraries, accumulated over centuries, represent a vast treasury of cultural heritage and investment in the broad public good of promoting scholarship and advancing knowledge.

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