HathiTrust is pleased to announce its partnership as a Content Hub with the DPLA. Details can be read in the official news release: http://dp.la/info/2013/06/18/hathitrust-to-partner-with-dpla/.

HathiTrust is pleased to announce the membership of the inaugural Program Steering Committee. The members, whose terms begin immediately, include:

• Ivy Anderson (University of California)
• John Butler (University of Minnesota)
• Todd Grappone (University of California)
• Mike Furlough (Penn State)
• Martha Hruska (University of California, San Diego)
• Martin Kurth (New York University)
• Erica Linke (Carnegie Mellon University)
• Matthew Sheehy (Harvard University)
• Elaine Westbrooks (University of Michigan)
• Bob Wolven, Chair (Columbia University)

The Program Steering Committee serves at the direction of the Board of Governors in the following manner:

• Reviews HathiTrust’s development agenda, shaping initiatives and strategies for Board discussion and decision-making, and considering the implications of those initiatives for the future. Working Groups can be appointed and charged by the Chair of the Program Steering Committee to assist with its work.
• Reports to the Board of Governors recommended alterations in the development agenda based on such reviews.
• Based on its reviews, develops position papers for the member community to encourage debate or mobilize discussion with regard to particular issues.
• Works with the Board of Governors to develop policies for HathiTrust and its members.

More information about the Program Steering Committee is available in the HathiTrust Bylaws.

HathiTrust User Support Group Seeking Nominations

The User Support Working Group is seeking nominations for up to 3 new members. This is a great opportunity to get involved in the day-to-day work of the partnership. Nominations should be submitted by July 1, 2013 via the form at http://tinyurl.com/m9qlyyg and include the name, title, email address, and a short description of current job duties for the nominated staff member. Additional information that might be relevant to participation in the group may be included as well. User Support members are on call at least one day per week and follow up on inquiries throughout the week, requiring between 2-4 hours of work. Staff that participate on the group will:

• Gain knowledge about HathiTrust’s user base, typical problems and questions that are raised and how they are resolved.
• Become aware of new ways HathiTrust is being used, and features and functionality that users desire.
• Gain knowledge of HathiTrust organizational and technical infrastructure, and policies and procedures relating to copyright, access, collection development, deposit of materials, and preservation.
• Contribute to a vital component of partnership operations.

The charge for the working group is available at http://www.hathitrust.org/wg_user-support_charge.

Sincerely,
Jeremy York
Project Librarian, HathiTrust
734-936-5611

Hello colleagues,

Our HathiTrust April 2013 Update is now available.   Several important new developments are announced in the newsletter:

* service to support access for users who have print disabilities at partner institutions

* updated, enhanced HathiTrust web presence and user interface

The newsletter also includes updates on a Board of Governors in-person meeting, activities related to ingest of locally-digitized materials from partner institutions, and next steps and plans for the HathiTrust Research Center.

http://www.hathitrust.org/updates_april2013

–Heather Christenson
on behalf of the HathiTrust Communications Working Group

Hello Colleagues,

HathiTrust has released an updated, stylish new design and new features for its website. The new design incorporates feedback submitted by HathiTrust users and input from HathiTrust’s User Experience and Communications working groups. Some of the highlights include:

• Look and feel – HathiTrust has been given a fresh, user-friendly design that unifies all parts of the website.
• Accessibility – HathiTrust continues its tradition of style with function, paying particular attention to accessibility in major and minor functional components of the interface.
• An engaging homepage – A consolidated search area and prominent links to user collections, hand-picked books, and our mobile interface, invite users to explore the HathiTrust collection. Links to social media, the HathiTrust Research Center, and HathiTrust projects provide updates on activities and invite engagement.
• Login benefits – Users can now log in from anywhere on the site, and the login area of the homepage highlights the benefits of logging in to users from partner institutions.
• Improvements to the reading interface – Our new online reading interface increases the amount of space available for reading books, while still keeping reading controls and bibliographic information readily accessible.
• Persistent tabbed search box – Options for searching the bibliographic catalog and full-text of works have been combined into a single tabbed search, with help information to guide users in deciding which search to use. A persistent search header allows searches to be performed from any page on the website.

Special thanks to the University of Michigan programmers, designers, project managers, and systems staff who made the new design happen.

The HathiTrust Research Center has announced new tools today:

http://ovpitnews.iu.edu/news/page/normal/24146.html

Best,

Heather Christenson, on behalf of the HathiTrust Communications Working Group

Spring is here (or, for some, hopefully coming soon!), and our March update is hot off the press.  The news includes:

• A reminder about submitting nominations for the Program Steering Committee
• A report on the HathiTrust Research Center’s first production release
• An announcement of the hiring of Valerie Glen to the analyst position for the HathiTrust US government documents registry
• An invitation to take a survey on HathiTrust created by Syracuse University
• An brief update on HathiTrust Board activities
• Preparations to release a redesigned website (the release is planned for next week – screenshots are available in the online version of the newsletter)

And of course, our regular project and development updates.

–Heather Christenson
http://www.cdlib.org/contact/staff_directory/hchristenson.html

 

 

Hello HathiTrust partners,

Our update on February activities is now available.  Top News: the HathiTrust Research Center plans a release of software infrastructure at the end of March, loaded with the latest and greatest service components and tools.

And across HathiTrust, we continue to make progress on many activities.  Among them:

* Our copyright reviewers have found 5,505 public domain volumes out of 11,217 reviewed in the month of February.

* Our user support team engaged with 698 inquiries

* 22,930 volumes were ingested into HathiTrust, bringing our total to 10,645,334

Full Update: http://www.hathitrust.org/updates_february2013

Best wishes,

Heather Christenson

on behalf of the HathiTrust Communications Working Group

Our January update was released on Friday, and, in addition to the regular updates on ingest, projects, working groups and new development, we’re pleased to report that the new bylaws have been approved by the HathiTrust partners.

Also, as our year begins, it’s worth checking in on the HathiTrust resources page – a growing list of user guides and “how to” created by HathiTrust partner libraries.    If you have created resources about HathiTrust (including videos, library guides, etc.) that you’d like to share, please let us know (feedback@issues.hathitrust.org), and feel free to use and share those that are available.

Update: http://www.hathitrust.org/updates_january2013

Bylaws: http://www.hathitrust.org/documents/hathitrust-bylaws-201302.pdf

Resources page: http://www.hathitrust.org/resources

–Heather Christenson

on behalf of the HathiTrust Communications Working Group

 

2012 brought to a close the initial 5-year charter period that HathiTrust was granted by its founding institutions. 5 years later, the collaborative is stronger than ever. More than 70 academic and research institutions from around the world participate in HathiTrust, supporting a digital repository of 10.6 million volumes and a host of shared activities, all geared toward the provision of greater access to the scholarly and cultural record, more secure preservation, and greater research opportunities for our constituencies than we have ever had before. As we launch into a new year, and a new stage of HathiTrust, it is worthwhile to reflect on our progress and achievements in 2012. These include:

• A significant legal victory and affirmation of Fair Use in the case of Authors Guild v. HathiTrust
• Many new partners and a new governance structure
• A steady stream of technological improvements and enhancements
• Development of new services and infrastructure
• Continued engagement with our community in the form of presentations, discussions, and the HathiTrust Research Center Uncamp

A recap of activities in these areas and more can be read in the review on our website:
http://www.hathitrust.org/updates_review2012

Best wishes,
Heather Christenson
on behalf of the HathiTrust Communications Working Group

Hello colleagues,

Happy New Year!   We begin with a review of last month’s activities: http://www.hathitrust.org/updates_december2012.   Don’t miss the wonderful new video about our HathiTrust Research Center (also linked within the Update), and a new section “Most Accessed Volumes in HathiTrust.”

Best wishes,
Heather Christenson
on behalf of the HathiTrust Communications Working Group

Our final update of the year is now available:  http://www.hathitrust.org/updates_november2012

In November we prepared technical systems to offer access to out of print and brittle works at partner institutions, worked with several institutions on deposit of locally-digitized materials, received the first deposit of content from the University of Florida, and welcomed a new member to the User Experience Advisory Group. Work continued on projects such as Zephir, mPach, and updates to HathiTrust Web applications, and there was also a story with a happy ending, apt for the holidays, about full-text search.   Also please note there is a special message this month regarding bibliographic corrections.

Best wishes to all of you for a wonderful holiday!

–Heather

on behalf of the HathiTrust Communications Working Group