Hi, HathiTrust (https://www.hathitrust.org/, HT) hosts a large and very high quality collection of documents, mostly old books. Many of them would be useful for Wikisource and other Wikimedia projects. However, access is often restricted (see their answer below), which hinders getting these books, and copying them to Commons.
Access is also restricted to bots, so these books can only be copied one by one, which is very impractical. There used to be a small program called Hathi Download Helper which was very practical, but HT has changed their API, and it doesn't work anymore. Also the command line version of Internet Archive Downloader could be used to download books from HT, but it also doesn't work anymore. I don't have an account with a US university, which is also a possibility to access these books. Would it be possible that the Wikimedia Foundation contacts HT to form a partnership for getting privileged access to these books? Thanks, Yann ---------- Forwarded message --------- De : HathiTrust General Support <[email protected]> Date: mar. 23 juin 2026 à 00:13 Subject: GS-16271 Please make this available for download To: Yann Forget <[email protected]> Spruill Harder commented: Dear Yann, Thank you for submitting this request. In the HathiTrust collection, many volumes are open for full view for everyone because they are treated as being in the public domain worldwide: - Volumes published in the U.S. in 1930 or earlier - Volumes published outside the U.S. in 1900 or earlier - U.S. federal government documents Volumes published outside the U.S. between 1901-1930 are only made available when someone is attempting to access them from a U.S. IP address, and are otherwise restricted from view. Volumes published in 1931 or later are restricted from view for everyone because they are treated as being under copyright. For more information about how copyright and access is determined in the HathiTrust collection, please see the information on our Copyright and Access <https://www.hathitrust.org/the-collection/search-access/copyright-access/> page. In the meantime, if you need to access the material, I’d recommend pursuing options through interlibrary loan, or through document delivery services such as the following: - TechSearch at the University of Wisconsin, Madison <https://wts.wisc.edu/prices> - Document delivery services at the New York Public Library <http://www.nypl.org/help/research-services/interlibrary-loan> - Document delivery services at Columbia University, Morningside <https://guides.law.columbia.edu/fbs/documentdelivery> - Document delivery services at UCLA <https://guides.law.columbia.edu/fbs/documentdelivery> Please let us know if you have any questions. Best, Spruill Harder HathiTrust User Support ------------------------------ *Original message sent to HathiTrust User Support:* *GENERAL FEEDBACK* Book description or URL: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000483530 Hi, Please make this work available for download, as it is in the public domain both in the USA and in Europe. Thank you, Yann Forget
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