W&M Libraries has joined HathiTrust, a non-profit collective of academic libraries preserving 17+ million digitized items scanned by member libraries. For a limited time, while the Libraries’ book collections are closed to the public, HathiTrust is offering temporary online access to books they've digitized which W&M Libraries owns in its print collection.
“This will allow our users to access books in our print collection that they currently can't access because of the closure of our building due to COVID-19,” said Georgie Donovan, associate dean of collections and content services for W&M Libraries. “This includes at least a quarter of a million books from our print collections.”
Links to HathiTrust titles can be found in the Libraries’ catalog or users can access by visiting https://www.hathitrust.org/.
HathiTrust emergency temporary access will end when the university libraries have reopened and library users are once again able to access the physical collections.
Details about HathiTrust access:
- Out of copyright titles can be downloaded – but not temporary access ones.
- Temporary access books are "checked out" to one person at a time for an hour at a time (though that can be extended as long as no one else wants the book).
- If the book you want is checked out, you'll have to return periodically to see when it's checked back in (there are no "recalls").