Hathitrust logo

Millions of electronic books are now available to UCSB users through the HathiTrust Digital Library, which has allowed for Emergency Temporary Access Services of copyrighted material to member institutions with copies of those items in their physical collections. 

The UC Libraries have contributed more than 4.5 million digitized books from their collections to HathiTrust Digital Library, a result of 15 years of continuous digitization work. UC faculty, students, and staff will have access to these digitized books in HathiTrust that represent UC’s physical holdings. 

This emergency, temporary service expands access significantly beyond the millions of digitized public domain volumes currently available via HathiTrust.

To take advantage of this temporary expanded access:

  1. Visit https://www.hathitrust.org and click the yellow “LOG IN” button.

  2. Select “University of California, Santa Barbara” and log in using your campus credentials.

  3. Search the HathiTrust digital library to locate the item you wish to view.

  4. Click on the Temporary Access link at the bottom of the record to Check Out the item through the Emergency Temporary Access Service.

You will have 60 minutes of access to an in-copyright book during the session. If you remain active in the book during the session, access time will be extended. You are not able to download the book in any way; you may only read it online in an active session while using HathiTrust. This access model is intended to address the unique access needs of this moment while still protecting the author’s rights.

It is important to note that this is a temporary service. Emergency access will end when regular access to UC library’s physical collection is restored. 


HathiTrust’s Top Three Tips for Users:

  1. Log-in, Log-in, Log-in! Temporary Access books available from your library’s collection are available only when you log-in to HathiTrust using your normal institutional log-in and password. 

  2. Check out an item only when you plan to use it. Each Temporary Access book has an initial check-out period of 60 minutes. If you remain active in the book during any session, access time will be extended. If you do not remain active, it will be released for use by other users on your campus.

  3. Use step-by-step instructions for computer/mobile access. Start here.

If you have questions or concerns, please submit them to feedback@issues.hathitrust.org.