When Washington State University Libraries open July 12, emergency temporary access to their print holdings contained within the HathiTrust Digital Library will end. HathiTrust is a nonprofit collaborative of academic and research libraries preserving more than 17 million digitized items.
WSU Libraries gained access to the HathiTrust collections in April 2020 following closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Between April. 24,2020, and June 22, 2021, 3,839 unique books were checked out online a total of 6,442 times with an additional 2,414 renewals. The HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS) permits special access for HathiTrust member libraries that suffer an unexpected or involuntary, temporary disruption to normal operations, requiring the library to be closed to its patrons or otherwise restrict print collection access services.
The service makes it possible for member library patrons to obtain lawful access to specific digital materials in HathiTrust that correspond to physical books held by their own library. The ETAS enables many HathiTrust member libraries to continue supporting the teaching, learning, and research mission of their institutions during these disruptions in service.
For more information about the ETAS deactivation, please contact Joel Cummings, WSU head of collection development, at jcummings@wsu.edu.
