Hathitrust
You may have come across HathiTrust in Melvyl and wondered what it is, or you might have heard about it in a scholarly journal or news item. The University of California Libraries are members of the HathiTrust. That means that we are able to contribute to it and to access its vast public domain collections.
In Melvyl
If you do a search in Melvyl and retrieve an item that is part of the HathiTrust Collection, you will see a link for it under Find a Copy Online -> Other Libraries. Sometimes, if you follow that link, you will be able to view the full text of the item. Sometimes, you will find that the item can be searched, but not displayed. The UC Libraries are attempting to make this distinction more immediately obvious, and we appreciate your patience. At this point, whether the full-text is available or not, Melvyl will indicate that UCR has access.
At HathiTrust.org
The HathiTrust collection can be searched or browsed directly at the HathiTrust.org website. At the site you can:
- Search for items by their catalog information (title, author, subject...)
- Search the full-text of the entire collection
- Browse individual sub-collections.
- Mark and "collect" your favorite items.
- Download a .pdf of public domain documents.
As always, read the search tips to make a more perfect search (i.e. how to limit to full-view documents, or search words as a phrase).
What is HathiTrust?
HathiTrust (hot-hee trust) is a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future.
Origins?
Many of the original items were provided by Google Books to HathiTrust (in ~2008) as a permanent academic archive. Now there are more than sixty partners who contribute digitized versions of their collections.
Hathi?
Hathi is a Hindi word for elephant, which symbolizes the project because it is large and known for its excellent memory.
Some Favorite Collections
- 18th C. Cookbooks (U. Mich)
- California County Histories (Davis)
- Historical Bicycling
- Non-Newtonian Calculus
