OpenAthens bolsters HathiTrust’s offer to academic libraries
We’re pleased to announce that HathiTrust has joined the OpenAthens Federation.
Our identity federation is the only one in the world that enables participation from any country or sector. Hosted in multiple global regions, our 2,600 members access a range of academic journals and e-books in numerous subject areas.
About HathiTrust
Founded in 2008, HathiTrust digital library is a not-for-profit organization. The company collaborates with 200+ academic and research libraries to preserve 17.4 million digitized publications.
The digital library offers reading access to the fullest extent allowable by US copyright law. Researchers have computational access to the entire collection for analysis of scholarly research materials.
Since its inception, HathiTrust has addressed large scale challenges that libraries collectively face and provided solutions by working closely with its members. It manages programs to find and open public domain materials and expanded access to US federal publications.
Response to the global pandemic
In response to patrons’ needs, HathiTrust opened an Emergency Temporary Access Service which allows temporary, emergency access to the collection for member libraries during service disruptions caused by the global pandemic.
Enabling remote access to content
Joining our federation enables more academic libraries to remotely access HathiTrust’s services. Identity and access management issues can be barriers for some libraries. But our identity federation enables more academic communities to join and access digital resources through simple single sign-on.
When asked about OpenAthens, executive director at HathiTrust, Mike Furlough said:
“Our membership in the OpenAthens Federation has the potential to open research paths for new communities of students and researchers. We are delighted to become part of a service that is so well respected within the industry.”
Jon Bentley, commercial director at OpenAthens, commented:
“Like OpenAthens, HathiTrust is a member-driven organization and puts its 200+ academic and research library members first. We are delighted to welcome HathiTrust to our federation. We look forward to supporting their work with academic and research libraries.”