Brown University Library Joins HathiTrust Partnership | Brown University Library News

"Brown University Library has become the newest member of HathiTrust (www.hathitrust.org), a partnership of major academic and research libraries collaborating in an extraordinary digital library initiative to preserve and provide access to the published record in digital form. Brown University Library will join HathiTrust as a sustaining partner. Launched in 2008, HathiTrust has a growing membership currently comprising more than sixty partners. Over the last four years, the partners have contributed more than 10 million volumes to the digital library, digitized from their library collections through a number of means including Google and Internet Archive digitization 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. Specialized 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. Brown University Library looks forward to membership in HathiTrust as a means to sustain access to print works in an increasingly comprehensive digital archive of library materials converted from print that is co-owned and managed by academic institutions, provide online access to many print-only books currently held at Brown, and provide access to a wide array of scholarly resources beyond Brown’s current holdings."