What is HathiTrust?
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic institutions that created and continues to support a digital repository of 17.4 million books and journals scanned and deposited by its membership and through other preservation projects, like Google Books and Internet Archive. HathiTrust offers reading access to the fullest extent allowable by U.S. copyright law, computational access to the entire corpus for scholarly research, and other emerging services based on the combined collection. HathiTrust stewards this collection under the aims of scholarly, not corporate, interests. HathiTrust holds the largest set of digitized books managed by the academic, research, and library community.
How can I get help logging in and using HathiTrust?
Your subject specialist can help you log in and search within HathiTrust. You also can search our 24/7 FAQ, send us an email at copley@sandiego.edu, text message us, or chat live with a librarian. Just go to our Ask a Librarian services at: libanswers.sandiego.edu.
How do I access HathiTrust with my USDOne credentials?
As member affiliates, USD faculty, staff and students can log in to HathiTrust directly using the HathiTrust login button through the main HathiTrust webpage: hathitrust.org
After clicking on the yellow LOG IN button, select the University of San Diego from the partner institution list.
By clicking the yellow CONTINUE button that appears, you will be directed to the University of San Diego to enter your USDOne login and password:
Your USDOne credentials will take you directly to the HathiTrust Digital Library catalog to begin searching.
Why the name "HathiTrust?"
HathiTrust was named for the Hindi word for elephant, hathi (pronounced 'hah-tee'), symbolic of the qualities of memory, wisdom, and strength evoked by elephants, as well as the huge undertaking of congregating the digital collections of libraries in the United States and beyond.
Video tutorial on accessing HathiTrust
Click on the image below for a video tutorial on accessing HathiTrust with USDOne credentials.
What are the benefits of logging in to HathiTrust?
Members of partner institutions get access to the largest number of volumes and features by logging in with their institution. Logging in enables members of HathiTrust partner institutions to:
- Download public domain works that have download restrictions (see “Can I download a whole book?” for more information);
- Create, save and share public or private collections;
HathiTrust provides open access for all to view over 6.5 million public domain titles within its collection. With USD's HathiTrust membership, faculty, staff and students with USDOne credentials can also download public domain titles in their entirety.
Note: HathiTrust users with non-U.S. IP addresses cannot access volumes published outside the U.S. from 1876-1922.
What is public domain?
Public domain describes works that are free of known copyright restrictions and are freely owned by the public and can be used without obtaining permission. No one can "own" a public domain work.
The following are in the public domain, giving full access:
- Volumes published in the U.S. prior to 1925
- Published outside the U.S. before 1876 (for non-U.S. users, before 1873)
- U.S. federal government documents
What access is available for in-copyright works in HathiTrust?
HathiTrust allows searchable access to all material in the Digital Library, including copyrighted works (also known as in-copyright) for data mining and advanced research. While in-copyright material is not available for viewing in the HathiTrust Digital Library for any member, the ability to search the full text of HathiTrust content allows USD users to identify in-copyright materials that they may want to request through Copley Library.
What can I do without logging in to HathiTrust?
All users can do the following without logging in:
- Search across the entire collection
- Read and view works that are “full-view”
- Search within works that are “limited (search-only)”
- Download a single page at a time from works that have download restrictions (e.g., works that are in the public domain but were digitized by Google or other vendors with contractual limitations)
- Download an entire work that doesn’t have download restrictions (e.g., works digitized by Internet Archive and other organizations, works that have been opened with a Creative Commons license)