HathiTrust is a collection of over 10 million digitized books, all of which are findable in Melvyl (The all UC libraries catalog). About 1/4 of HathiTrust titles are in the public domain, immediately available in full view with a single click from the Melvyl catalog record. Want to read Tom Sawyer? You can, for free! How about Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet or Tolstoy's Anna Karenina? Yes, those are available too, along with millions more. What's not to love about that?!
It's the remaining 7.5 million or so titles that have had librarians scratching their heads for the past couple of years. Because just like the titles that are available in full view, when these limited view, restricted titles came up in a Melvyl search, it looked like they should be fully available. But they weren't. There's plenty not to love about that.
Recently, however, it got easier to determine if HathiTrust titles discovered in Melvyl are available in full view or limited view. New labels for HathiTrust books differentiate between Full View and Limited View titles. For more details on this positive change, visit "10,000,000 HathiTrust Records Now Have Clear Labels in Melvyl" from the California Digital Library (CDL).
