HathiTrust
Inside Higher Ed today carries a story* indicating that the American Library Assn. is supporting various universities (including UC) and their position in the HathiTrust case. “HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.” [See http://www.hathitrust.org/ ] This is a case involving charges of copyright infringement by an organization called the Authors Guild. We have posted entries about this case before. The purpose of the HathiTrust is said to be “preserving and providing access to digitized book and journal content from the partner library collections. This includes both in copyright and public domain materials digitized by Google, the Internet Archive, and Microsoft, as well as through in-house initiatives. The partners aim to build a comprehensive archive of published literature from around the world and develop shared strategies for managing and developing their digital and print holdings in a collaborative way. The primary community that HathiTrust serves are the members (faculty, students, and users) of its partners libraries, but the materials in HathiTrust are available to all to the extent permitted by law and contracts, providing the published record as a public good to users around the world.” Generally, faculty who use modern technology in teaching and research have an interest in this case and in more open, rather than restricted, access to materials in digital format.