The HathiTrust Digital Library, a partnership among some of the US's largest academic research libraries, has launched a new digital catalogue search that delivers nearly 3 million full-text records through an Internet browser. The new service provides access to the collections of premier research libraries in the US.
Admission for the public to examine archives at the most prominent research libraries is an ongoing effort for HathiTrust to build a digital archive of library materials converted from print, co-owned and managed by participating academic institutions. HathiTrust is also currently finding ways to use large-scale full-text searching, which will provide researchers with a mechanism to search within the works and across the entire repository. Blending the latest technology with purpose of sharing knowledge, the service is building a community with the common goal of openly distributing information.
Launched in October 2008, the HathiTrust Digital Library includes the 12-university consortium known as the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), the 11 university libraries of the University of California system, and the University of Virginia. HathiTrust partners began including digital content from Indiana University and the University of California in late April. The addition of digital content from these institutions increases the number of books and journals in the repository by an estimated 500,000 volumes per month. Before adding these materials, content was exclusively from collections at the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin.
Catalogue records of the HathiTrust Digital Library are also available to local libraries, which can download and incorporate HathiTrust records into a local catalogue. Many institutions, including the University of Chicago and the University of Colorado, have already successfully integrated the content.
