2019: HathiTrust at Mid-Year & Upcoming Opportunities

Six months into the first year of implementing Strategic Directions 2019-2023, I want to share some highlights and take a look at where we are headed in the next six months. HathiTrust’s Strategic Directions, 2019-2023, reinforces our commitment to digital preservation and access, to our role as stewards of the cultural record, our interdependent success as libraries, and to our collective work to support this mission. The specific investments and actions we are undertaking in 2019 align with the plan’s overarching objectives to Transform, Enhance, and Empower.

Between January 2019 and June 2019, HathiTrust and its members

• Welcomed new staff Eleanor Dickson Koehl (Digital Scholarship Librarian) and Heather Weltin (Shared Print Program Officer).
• Approved formal Membership Criteria, Fee Model changes, and Board Bylaws to clarify policies and support diversity in membership.
• Improved accessibility for those with print disabilities by updating the user interface and features of the HathiTrust Digital Library.
• Opened nearly 54,000 publications published in 1923 that are now in the public domain in the United States. . Over 48,000 additional volumes are now also open to global users.
• Completed Phase 2 of the Shared Print Program, with 79 libraries committing 5.4 individual print titles also held in the HathiTrust Digital Library (about 76% of all HathiTrust digital monographs).
• Added eight new members: Clemson University; Monash University (Australia); University of Auckland (New Zealand); University of Kentucky; University of North Texas; University of Southern California; Queen’s University (Canada); San José State University.

HathiTrust staff and member-led advisory groups continue to advance other strategic projects, as well. We are also pleased to have a role in the Mellon Foundation- funded Federating Repositories of Accessible Learning Materials for Higher Education (FRAME).

Between July 2019 and December 2019, we will continue to improve accessibility for those with print disabilities; plan new services of the Shared Print Program; delve deeper into collection analysis; and build our organizational expertise by hiring an Enterprise Architect and a Metadata Analyst.

In the near term, I want to draw your attention to several opportunities to participate that you’ll hear about in the coming weeks. As core HathiTrust staff planned for the latter half of 2019, they identified several activities in which members can meaningfully participate and add their unique perspective. These include opportunities to

• Serve on one of several new Program Steering Committee working groups and task forces, coordinated by PSC chair, Karla Strieb. We will soon begin to  establish, charge, and invite members.
• Host a HathiTrust Research Center 2019-2020 Workshop in the new series coordinated by Digital Scholarship Librarian, Eleanor Koehl.
• Register for the 2019 Member Meeting, to be held October 23, 2019 in Rosemont, IL, coordinated by the program planning group.
• Support access for those with print disabilities on your campus by passing along improved accessibility documentation or enrolling your campus in the Equitable Access service for those with print disabilities.

Please consider each opportunity and pass along the information to those in your organization who may be interested. I appreciate all that you have contributed to our work in 2019 thus far and look forward to seeing many of you at the October Member Meeting.

mike