HathiTrust May 2011 Update: Orphan Works, New UC Members on Advisory Board and More

The May 2011 HathiTrust update has been posted on the HathiTrust website.  This month’s top news items include research on orphan works and new UC members on the Strategic Advisory Board.

Orphan Works Research

With funding from HathiTrust, the University of Michigan Library Copyright Office has begun work to identify orphan works – works that are known to be in copyright, but whose rights holders cannot be identified or located – in HathiTrust’s growing repository. The goal of the project is to provide concrete data on the number of orphan works in HathiTrust, which could be used in the creation of legal or policy-based frameworks to allow broader access to orphan works for scholarly and research purposes. The official press release is available on the University of Michigan Library website.

New Members on the SAB

The Strategic Advisory Board welcomed two new members from the University of California in May: Todd Grappone, Associate University Librarian for Digital Initiatives and Information Technology at UCLA, and Julia Kochi, Director, Digital Libraries and Collections at UC San Francisco. Todd and Julia take the place of Bernie Hurley, UC Berkeley and Bruce Miller, UC Merced, who are stepping down from their duties on the SAB. The HathiTrust Executive Committee would like to thank Bernie and Bruce for their important contributions to the partnership on this committee.