The University of Florida (UF) George A. Smathers Libraries has joined the HathiTrust Digital Library, a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future. There are more than fifty partners in the HathiTrust, and membership is open to institutions worldwide. Currently, the HathiTrust has 8.9 million digitised volumes.
As a result of its participation in the HathiTrust, users of the UF Libraries will soon gain access to digital versions of some of the thousands of orphan works held in print by the UF Libraries that are also available in the HathiTrust Digital Library. These works will be fully searchable, viewable and accessible to UF students and faculty wherever there is a connection to the Internet. The print copy remains available if needed.
The UF Libraries join with the libraries at the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin in an initiative to identify orphan works and attempt to locate the 'parents.' The libraries will create a mechanism to publicise bibliographic information about the orphans to give their parents the opportunity to claim them and make informed decisions about the status of their work in the HathiTrust.
It is likely that the majority of orphans exist without a surviving person or entity to claim ownership. If owners do not come forward, the digital versions of these scholarly works will be made available through the HathiTrust and each library will provide its users with access to the ones that match its print holdings. Orphan works from the HathiTrust will be available to users of the UF Libraries later this year.
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