Thanks to UCLA Library’s partnership with a consortium of academic and research organizations, UCLA students, staff and faculty now have temporary access to digital versions of millions of volumes held by libraries across the University of California system and those kept in UC’s two off-site library storage facilities.

The consortium, HathiTrust, is providing emergency access to member institutions, including UCLA, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupts access to our physical books, we are seeing a strong return on donor and campus investments in the Library’s initiative to digitize materials in our print collections,” said Virginia Steel, UCLA’s university librarian. “We have steadily worked over the past decade to be remote-ready, and this includes forming strategic partnerships with organizations such as the HathiTrust.”

Based on its 2018 holdings, about half of the Library’s print collection overlaps with the HathiTrust digital collection, so the new temporary service now provides access to the digital versions of more than 5.2 million print volumes for the duration of the emergency.

UCLA Library users with a valid Bruin Online credential may log in to the HathiTrust Digital Library and then check out copyrighted books for online reading only through renewable one-hour loans.

The items are protected by copyright law, and no further reproduction or distribution is permitted by any means without the permission of the copyright holder. On the other hand, reading and downloading books in the digitized public domain volumes currently accessed via the HathiTrust Digital Library remains available.

To access the materials, UCLA Library users may log in to the HathiTrust website, select “University of California, Los Angeles” and enter their campus credentials. For additional information, visit the HathiTrust FAQs page.

Library users can also take advantage of a series of online resources and tools available to support research and teaching needs.

Existing services, such as the popular “Ask a Librarian” feature, have been supplemented by new online services, including remote research consultations, a series of online workshops and a comprehensive guide to temporary expanded access during COVID-19 via the Library website. Check the Library’s schedule of events to see when these workshops occur.