Integrate HathiTrust Records into Your Catalog

There are multiple ways to integrate HathiTrust catalog records, including those in the Public Domain (listed as “Full View”); copyrighted titles (“Limited-View Only”); or “Temporary Access” under special circumstances. You can use an API, incorporate HathiTrust specific data, or take advantage of already-in-use third party discovery systems.

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.

Bibliographic API

HathiTrust offers an API that returns brief or full marc in JSON format for all records in the HathiTrust catalog, Full View or Limited View.

The url-encoded call the code in your ILS will need to make follows either of these patterns:

http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/brief/<id type>/<id value>.json

http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/full/<id type>/<id value>.json

The API call relies on values from one of several ID types:

oclc: An OCLC number is a unique control number given to all bibliographic records in the WorldCat catalog. The value will automatically be normalized to just digits (ex: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/brief/oclc/qrs424023.json is the same as https://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/brief/oclc/424023.json).

lccn: Will automatically be normalized as recommended

issn: Will automatically be normalized to just digits.

isbn: Will automatically be normalized to just digits (and possible trailing X). ISBN-13s will be left alone; ISBN-10s will search against both the ISBN-10 and the ISBN-13

htid: The HathiTrust Volume ID of a particular volume (e.g., mdp.39015058510069)

recordnumber: The 9-digit HathiTrust record number, used as cluster id, or as the ht_bib_key in the HathiFiles (see below).

Example: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/brief/recordnumber/101865392.json

Returns*:

{“records”:

{“101865392”:{“recordURL”:”https:\/\/catalog.hathitrust.org\/Record\/101865392″,”titles”:[“Moby Dick”],”isbns”:[],”issns”:[],”oclcs”:[“703523454″],”lccns”:[“22005610″],”publishDates”:[“1922”]}},

“items”:[{“orig”:”University of Virginia”,”fromRecord”:”101865392″,”htid”:”uva.x000023213″,”itemURL”:”https:\/\/hdl.handle.net\/2027\/uva.x000023213″,”rightsCode”:”pdus”,”lastUpdate”:”20200311″,”enumcron”:false,”usRightsString”:”Full view”}]}

*Brief record used for space considerations; full record returns significantly more metadata.

Note: The values should be url-encoded if necessary; LCCN’s in particular can have spaces and forward-slashes in them.

“usRightsString”:”Full view” is the most relevant value in the returned metadata for institutions adding Full View only items to their catalog or discovery layer.

Note for Alma Users: Alma institutions can choose to add the HathiTrust API from ExLibris Cloud Apps to check HathiTrust for available items. Everything linked will be launched with the August 2020 Alma release.

See documentation here on GitHub: https://github.com/ExLibrisGroup/alma-hathitrust-availability

And here in the ExLibris Developers Network: https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/blog/how-to-install-and-use-the-hathitrust-availability-cloud-app-2/

ETAS note: If you are using any externally developed API or plug-in to enable access to ETAS items in your catalog, like the University of Minnesota Primo plug-in, removing ETAS records and URIs from your records after the service has been discontinued at your institution should be as simple as changing a variable. In the case of the U Minn plug-in, removing the attribute that allows for the return of copyrighted materials; the original version of the plug-in focused solely on those items with open copyright status allowing for users to access Full View for the item.

Hathifiles

The HathiFiles is a tab-delimited file containing an entry for every item in HathiTrust. There may be multiple items per catalog record. Repeated ht_bib_key values are expected (see HathiFiles Description for more information on ht_bib_key values. The ht_bib_key value is the same as recordnumber for the BibAPI).

There are nightly update files and monthly full catalog files published here.

OAI-PMH

All of HathiTrust Full View content, whether it’s open globally or just for the US, is made available for acquisition via an OAI feed, in either MARC-21 or Dublin Core formats.

Note: These are only partial marc records.

Third Party Vendors

HathiTrust Full View content is indexed and available through ExLibris/ProQuest, OCLC and EBSCO products. However each service defines their clustering of records (databases, collections, etc…), there should be multiple HathiTrust options depending on your geographic region.

OCLC/WorldCat:

If your institution uses WorldCat Management Services (WMS) from OCLC, please reach out either to your institutional contact or via a support ticket to ask them to revert the changes made to the KB collections of your catalog at the start of ETAS.

All links from OCLC WorldShare use the following syntax:

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/<oclc number>.html

Summon:

Several HathiTrust Databases are available to activate in Summon. Please see this Knowledge Center article for a more detailed description of the choices:

https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Summon/Product_Documentation/Configuring_The_Summon_Service/Open_Access_Content_in_the_Summon_Service/Summon%3A_Choosing_a_HathiTrust_Database%2C_Content_Coverage%2C_and_Copyright_Restrictions

Primo:

HathiTrust is also available in Primo, via Summon. A more detailed description of the changes that have been made can be found here:

https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Primo/Content_Corner/Primo_Central_Index/Knowledge_Articles/Changes_in_content_coverage_from_HathiTrust_in_Primo_Central

Alma:

Recently ExLibris has added Cloud Apps to Alma. One of the apps available at launch was the HathiTrust Availability app. Details on how to install this app in your Alma instance can be found here: https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/blog/how-to-install-and-use-the-hathitrust-availability-cloud-app-2/

EBSCO:

EBSCO offers collections based on which titles are Full View for an institution’s country of origin. An EBSCO representative should be able to offer guidance on this question.

Rights Designations

Using metadata from the HathiFiles, OAI or the BibAPI allows for identifying records that are marked for Full View pertinent to an institution’s regional copyright limitations.

The following rights codes are most useful for institutions intending to integrate records of HathiTrust Full View content. Records with these rights codes indicate items that have Full View availability for most users (depending on region) and are not reliant on an institution holding a print copy of the item.

For full descriptions of rights codes and how access may differ depending on geographic region, review details in the HathiTrust Rights Database technical overview.