Our Blog

By Jenny Emmanuel, HathiTrust User Experience Advisory Group The HathiTrust User Experience Advisory Group recently released a set of “personas” depicting typical users of HathiTrust Digital Library. Personas are aggregate statements that display information about typical users and their needs. They are a commonly used usability method that collects data from multiple sources, including website analytics, search logs, first person stories, researcher observations, and other methods which are then aggregated into a narrative to depict stories depicting who HathiTrust users are and how they used the information within HathiTrust.

December 16, 2011

By Suzanne Chapman, Chair, HathiTrust User Experience Advisory Group Looking for books to read on your shiny new tablet or other mobile device? This fall we officially released a mobile version of the HathiTrust Digital Library. The mobile site offers mobile-friendly access to key functionality including searching the HathiTrust catalog and reading HathiTrust "Full view" texts. Users from HathiTrust partner institutions can also download these "Full view" texts in PDF or ePub format to allow reading offline. Since the mobile interface is web-based, it works on all platforms and may be viewed either from mobile devices or from desktops and laptops. The interface has special functionality for tablets with two ways to read texts: either in the vertical scrolling format, or in a horizontal flip format. Please give it a try and let us know what you think! http://m.hathitrust.org/ Many thanks to the University of Michigan Library User Experience Department for designing and developing this exciting new interface.

December 3, 2011

On October 8-9, 2011 delegates from across the U.S. and around the world gathered in Washington, DC for a landmark event, the HathiTrust Constitutional Convention. Our goals were to review the work and accomplishments of the now 3-year-old HathiTrust, and chart its future governance and priorities. Before the group were seven different ballot proposals that had been submitted by HathiTrust partners ahead of the meeting. On a beautiful autumn weekend, the delegates headed indoors, gathered around tables, and deeply engaged in the proceedings and discussion.

November 10, 2011

Opening remarks given at the HathiTrust Constitutional Convention, October 8, 2011 (view presentation slides) By John Wilkin, HathiTrust Executive Director

October 17, 2011

By John Wilkin, Executive Director, HathiTrust It is a core tenet of HathiTrust that preservation cannot take place without access. The coupling of preservation and access is both philosophically and strategically central to HathiTrust’s mission, as awareness of the materials in our collections helps to create the value that leads to preservation. And because discovery is integral to access, HathiTrust has worked hard on a multi-pronged strategy for discovery.

June 24, 2011