LibGuides: HathiTrust Digital Library @ Denison: About HathiTrust

What is the HathiTrust?

The HathiTrust (pronounced 'hah-tee') is a partnership of libraries and research institutions that have come together to build and share a digital repository of print works. Begun in 2008, the goal of the partnership is to build a comprehensive archive of published literature from around the world. The HathiTrust has pursued this goal chiefly by digitizing materials like books and journals from major library collections and other partners, such as Google, the Internet Archive, and Microsoft. Currently, over 200 academic libraries and other major research institutions are members of HathiTrust. Denison Libraries joined in 2024.

What are the benefits of Denison's membership in HathiTrust to students and faculty?

Anyone with an internet connection can access most HathiTrust content in the public domain, currently over 18,000,000 titles published prior to 1929. Benefits to the Denison community include:

Denison students, faculty, and staff have access to a small number of additional public domain titles not otherwise accessible to the general public (see "Logging in to HathiTrust").
You can download HathiTrust titles in the public domain for further analysis and manipulation.
You can keyword search the entire HathiTrust Digital Library, both public domain and in-copyright titles, to facilitate information discovery. HathiTrust has richer ways to search and find resources, compared to Google Books, an important distinction and consideration for academic researchers. HathiTrust can therefore be used to facilitate textual analyses and other digital humanities projects. For more information about computational access, see the HathiTrust Research Center tab.
Denison patrons with a certified print disability can download in-copyright titles, namely e-books owned by the Denison Libraries in print. Email Disability Services for assistance.