How To Join
Institutions seeking more information on participation in HathiTrust should contact 734.764.8016 or e-mail hathitrust-info@umich.edu. For individuals desiring access to repository materials, no membership is required -- please see Access To HathiTrust. General information on partnership requirements is provided below.
Becoming A Partner
Who is eligible?
Institutions worldwide. All current partners have deposited content in HathiTrust and are paying for preservation and access services for that content. However, HathiTrust has introduced a new cost model that allows institutions to join that do not necessarily have content to deposit but wish to contribute to the curation of existing volumes in return for specialized services and participation in governance. All interested parties are invited to contact us at the email address above.
What legal agreements need to be signed?
There are two agreements that must be signed to become a partner. The first is the Digital Assets Agreement and Submission Inventory, which gives HathiTrust the right to store and display deposited content (access and rights restrictions for this content are documented in the Submission Inventory). The second is the partnership contract, which details specific terms of the partnership including cost and terms of access and withdrawal. Please contact us if you are interested in seeing a copy of the contract. A third Permissions Agreement can be used additionally to grant access to deposited works that are not in the public domain.
How much does it cost?
Information about costs is available on the Cost Calculator page.
Getting Content Into HathiTrust
There are two steps for partners to get their content into HathiTrust: the ingest of Bibliographic Data, and the ingest of the Digital Content itself.
Bibliographic Data
Prior to ingest of content, a Participating Institution makes available accurate bibliographic records for digital objects. Those records are loaded into a database at Michigan. Specifications for records for this process follow guidelines to be determined, and require an OCLC number. The records in Michigan’s database are used as part of the Repository digital object management strategy. Each record and digital page image identifies the source of the print volume upon which the digital file is based.
Content
Ingesting content into HathiTrust can happen through a variety of mechanisms, including ingest from Google, removable drives, or Internet delivery (see below). All content must be documented with a signed Digital Assets Agreement and Submission Inventory. A Permissions Agreement can be used to provide access to works that are not in the public domain.
- Google submission mechanism. HathiTrust initially supports ingest of content from Google. Ingest from Google takes place through automated processes managed by the University of Michigan. These processes ensure reliable data transfer of all content digitized by Google for a Participating Institution; however, access to the Participating Library’s content on Google’s return server is only made possible by Google with the permission of the Participating Library. In cooperation with Google, HathiTrust has also established procedures for the use of the Google return mechanisms for ingest of content not digitized by Google. These mechanisms involve the transfer of content to Google.
- Non-Google submission mechanism. HathiTrust will work over the first year of operation to develop mechanisms for direct ingest of content from at least one non-Google source (consisting of page image files and related metadata for book and journal content). Currently, the Repository accepts only page image files and associated OCR files and metadata.
