Partnership of Digital Libraries Hathi Trust Digital Library: the New Mode of Cooperation

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

There is analysed the activities of digital libraries partnership Hathi Trust Digital Library (HTDL), arose in October 2008 in the United States as a collaborative repository of digital collections of library systems of 13 universities in the U.S. Middle West and digital collections of 11 universities in California (now numbering 124 libraries). In the United States — the leader of IT-technologies — has been accumulated the vast experience in the field of organization of electronic resources, carried out a large-scale reorganization of library industry, the results of which are not sufficiently covered in the domestic library science. For the first time, the Russian library community is invited to learn the specific experience of the formation and operation of the partnership of digital libraries HTDL, based on the principle of institutional cooperation and coordination of management solutions in the conservation and maintenance of electronic collections.The main tasks of the distributed data warehouse belonging to the partnership group of large research libraries are: providing access to the digital collection first of all for collective users, libraries — co-founders; preservation of intellectual heritage through reliable and accessible electronic representation, improvement of open technological infrastructure. The HTML concept is based on the conscious preservation of the specificity of research libraries, when the user is offered a body of special catalogued literature, and the ranking of search results is not influenced by the commercial interests. It is noted that HTDL is built on the basis of an extensive network of interlibrary entities in the United States with extensive cooperation in the field of administration, cataloguing, and storage of printed materials.There are considered the priority achievements of Hathi Trust Digital Library: development of the new models of interlibrary cooperation, efficient distributed management structure, transparent scheme of payment calculation of infrastructure maintenance. The dynamics of the development of this resource from the moment of formation to the present time is analysed.