The University of Alabama has become one of the latest partners of Hathitrust, a partnership of major academic and research libraries collaborating in a digital library initiative to preserve and provide access to the published record in digital form.
Launched in 2008, HathiTrust has a growing membership currently comprising more than 60 partners. Over the last four years, the partners have contributed more than 10 million volumes to the digital library, digitised from their library collections through a number of means including Google and Internet Archive digitisation and in-house initiatives.
More than 3 million of the contributed volumes are in the public domain and freely available on the Web. HathiTrust serves a dual role. First, as a trusted repository it guarantees the long-term preservation of the materials it holds, providing the expert curation and consistent access long associated with research libraries. Second, as a service for partners and a public good, HathiTrust offers persistent access to the digital collections. This includes viewing, downloading and searching access to public domain volumes, and searching access to volumes still in copyright.
Specialised features are also available which facilitate access by persons with print disabilities, and they allow users to gather subsets of the digital library into collections that can be searched and browsed.
The University of Alabama Libraries is home to more than 3 million print items, plus a multitude of electronic resources and expanding digital archives serving the teaching, research and learning needs of University of Alabama students and faculty.
