Lehigh University is now a member of HathiTrust, joining the more than 150 academic and research libraries committed to digitally preserving the cultural record.
HathiTrust, whose name is derived from the Hindu word for elephant (Hathi), is a non-profit organization dedicated to working with academic libraries to collect, organize, preserve, and share the record of human knowledge. As a symbol of memory and wisdom, the elephant is an apt icon for the mission of the organization.
Lehigh’s membership significantly expands on the keyword searching capabilities HathiTrust already provides to the public:
Full-text downloads
Lehigh users can now download the full text of HathiTrust content. To access the library, click Login on the HathiTrust homepage, select Lehigh University, and then enter your Lehigh username and password.
Digital access to select Lehigh print holdings
In addition to discovering content through the HathiTrust website, Lehigh’s membership enables integration of HathiTrust content into the Lehigh Libraries online catalog. The library’s Technical Services team will use HathiTrust data to populate Lehigh’s catalog with links to the full text of books and other materials in those cases where Lehigh owns the print book. This will allow users to look at the online version of the library’s print holdings, providing them access to two formats - electronic and print - of the same item.
Accessible materials
Also by virtue of Lehigh's HathiTrust membership, people with visual disabilities can now request copies of materials that are in copyright through their Accessible Text Request Service.
Text mining
The membership helps Lehigh support an extremely important research tool that enables public searchability of keywords within books or other materials, and also encourages digital scholarship in the form of textual analysis to members of the public. The HathiTrust Research Center offers the ability to do text and data mining on all 17+ million items in the collection. Lehigh researchers are also eligible for exclusive, dedicated computing space for advanced research.
Lehigh contributions
Lehigh will also be able to contribute unusual or unique volumes to HathiTrust for preservation, therefore providing an electronic backup copy. If the item is in the public domain, Lehigh researchers may read it online or download it in full. If it is a copyrighted item, the full text can be used for text and data mining through the HathiTrust Research Center.
For more information, see the HathiTrust info sheets for faculty or students, as well as the Member Tookit. You can also contact science librarian Brian Simboli at 610-758-5003 or brs4@lehigh.edu.