Contribute Content

Although not a requirement of membership, we encourage all members to contribute their published record for long-term preservation and access and to make their unique collections available to a broader audience. We offer support to those embarking on digitization and contribution for the first time. The titles are stored in our certified repository and made available for search, display, and computational research, in addition to other uses as permitted by copyright law and licensing.

Current Contributors

Getting Started

It is usually simpler to create content that meets our requirements from the beginning than it is to modify existing scans.  We are here to help, and will gladly answer questions and review sample files. (Note: We are unable to work with individuals at this time to add digitized materials to our collection. We are only set up to work directly with our member libraries.)

New Digitization

If your institution is preparing to undertake a new digitization project and wishes to comply with our requirements, please consult the Technical Requirements for Digitized Page Images Submitted to HathiTrust.  These guidelines provide specific technical and quality requirements for creating digital objects, including:

• image format, resolution, and color
• image metadata
• image filenaming

For information on checksums, OCR, object metadata and creating Submission Information Packages (including package filenaming conventions), see our Submission Package Requirements for Digitized Content Submitted to HathiTrust.

Existing Digitized Content

HathiTrust has developed workflows to accommodate the ingest of content from Google and the Internet Archive efficiently and at scale.

HathiTrust also supports ingest of content digitized by institutions either in-house or as part of vended projects. In such cases, institutions must undertake any necessary content or metadata transformations prior to submission.

To determine whether existing content meets HathiTrust requirements for deposit, please refer to our Technical Requirements for Digitized Page Images Submitted to HathiTrust.

Submitting Bibliographic Metadata

For information on this stage of the process, see our bibliographic metadata specification.

Acceptable Formats

HathiTrust supports ingest of digitized books and book-like materials.  These include manuscripts, pamphlets, and both bound and unbound serials.  We cannot accept:

• unbound maps or other large-format items
• audio
• video
• items digitized from microform, film, or fiche
• born-digital materials, including PDFs and eBooks

Members wishing to deposit materials with HathiTrust may:

• work with one of our mass-digitization partners (currently Google and the Internet Archive), or
• work with us directly to establish a deposit workflow for locally-digitized materials

Note that HathiTrust does not offer digitization services. We can, however, provide guidelines and other support to members undertaking digitization projects.

Ingest Overview

HathiTrust requires the following artifacts for each deposited item:

• Content: a zip archive (Submission Information Package, or SIP) containing page scans, OCR text, object metadata, and fixity information for each digitized item
• Bibliographic metadata: a MARC-compliant record describing the print version of the digitized item

There are separate processes for content and bibliographic metadata submission.  For content submission, please email support@hathitrust.org for information.  For bibliographic metadata submission, see Bibliographic Metadata Submission.

In addition, we require the following two forms prior to deposit:

• Digital Asset Submission Inventory – (DASI) – This form describes the digital objects being submitted for deposit, and is used to establish the correct content stream (ingest processing workflow) for each submission. Note that this form requires a signature from a University Librarian or Dean of Libraries.  Please contact support@hathitrust.org with any questions; we will gladly review pre-signed drafts of this form.
• Administrative Coversheet – The information in this form is used to establish the correct configuration for bibliographic metadata loading and processing.

Metadata Sharing Policy

Please note that under HathiTrust Digital Library’s (HTDL) Metadata Sharing Policy, independent users, member institutions, and other third parties are free to harvest (for example, through our OAI feed or the HathiFiles), modify and/or otherwise make use of any metadata contained in HTDL unless restricted by contractual obligations residing with the parties that have contributed the metadata (“Depositing Institutions”) to HTDL. HathiTrust cannot be aware of every contractual obligation incumbent upon Depositing Institutions and as such makes no warranties on data made available through any of its several sharing mechanisms.

Contributor Toolkit

Current or prospective content contributors may find all the documentation in Resources for Librarians Contributor Toolkit.

Contributor Toolkit

Updated May 8, 2023