Cornell boosts digital library across 19-million-book mark

A vast online repository that preserves and gives free access to books from library collections around the world, HathiTrust Digital Library recently crossed the 19-million-book mark, thanks to the latest contributions from Cornell University Library.

HathiTrust posted the announcement on its blog on Oct. 22, praising Cornell University Library for its partnership.

Among the latest batch of materials deposited by the library to HathiTrust are texts in Dutch, German, Mandarin, Laotian, and Thai. It also included the Monthly Meteorological Summary: Ithaca, N.Y. 1920-43, a detailed day-by-day record of weather conditions in upstate New York, which "stands out for its potential usefulness in understanding historical climate variations in the United States," according to the HathiTrust blog post.

"We are honored to be credited with the contribution of the 19 millionth book," said Michelle Paolillo, the library's Digital Lifecycle Services manager who has served as HathiTrust coordinator for Cornell since it joined in 2010.

"I love that we can build this resource collaboratively - with the broad expertise of our own library staff, with staff at HathiTrust, and with other HathiTrust members," said Paolillo. "Together, this community manages the books and builds services around the corpus that benefit scholars and researchers."

To date, Cornell University Library has contributed almost 765,000 digitized titles to HathiTrust, which started in 2008 with 23 member libraries in the United States. It has since grown to become an international community of 200 research libraries as "stewards of the largest digitized collection of knowledge allowable by copyright law," according to its website.

Over the years, Cornell University Library's contributions to HathiTrust include the Making of America collection, publications of Cornell University Press, and publications by Cornell's land-grant and statutory colleges.