Boston University Libraries has become the latest member 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. The Libraries plan to contribute public domain volumes digitised through in-house projects and partnerships with the Internet Archive through the Boston Library Consortium.
As a trusted repository, HathiTrust guarantees the long-term preservation of the materials it holds, providing the expert curation and consistent access long associated with research libraries. Additionally, as a service for partners and a public good, HathiTrust also offers persistent access to the digital collections. This includes viewing, downloading, and searching access to public domain volumes, and searching access to in copyright volumes. Specialised features are also available which facilitate access by persons with print disabilities, and allow users to gather subsets of the digital library into 'collections' that can be searched and browsed.
Launched in 2008, HathiTrust has a growing membership currently comprising more than fifty partners. In addition to providing access and preservation to a rapidly growing digital corpus, member libraries are engaged in projects to enhance access and usability. The University of Michigan has launched a project to identify 'orphan works' among the millions of volumes in the HathiTrust Digital Library. This is a step toward developing broader access to these copyrighted volumes whose copyright owners cannot be identified or found. Other projects include text-mining and enhanced metadata management.
Boston University Libraries will rely on HathiTrust as a key component of the Libraries' digital preservation efforts. This collaboration will enable the Libraries to both expand its digital collections and to assure durable access to its own digital assets.
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