UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — As Penn State continues to adjust its COVID-19 mitigation strategies throughout the summer, Penn State University Libraries administration has decided to conclude use of the HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS) effective Saturday, July 10. Ending use of this online service will enable University Libraries teams to begin the process of reverting its physical spaces and titles’ catalog entries to indicate normal shelf access, with most locations University-wide except Pattee Library and Paterno Library aiming to reopen library stacks by July 19.
“Through its membership in HathiTrust, the University Libraries was able to offer the Penn State community full-text digital access to almost half of Penn State’s catalog of titles beginning in April 2020. This access was crucial during COVID-19 lockdown and has been helpful to remote users as we have been planning to restore full on-site services,” said Leo Lo, associate dean for Learning, Undergraduate Services and Commonwealth Campuses. “Because we know that Penn State is moving toward normal operations for the start of the fall semester, we determined that a summertime transition was the best timing for our teams to complete the process of restoring more normal operations while also minimizing impacts for our library users.”
Beginning July 10, University Libraries teams will begin the process of restoring physical access to collections and spaces that had been closed because of the pandemic. This process is expected to be completed by July 19 for most Penn State locations, resuming normal access to library stacks. Because of the volume and complexity of Pattee Library and Paterno Library holdings and spaces, access to its stacks will require a longer transition period, likely reopening in early August.
Library users with concerns about access to resources during the transition period, particularly users of resources at Pattee Library and Paterno Library, may ask questions via the Ask a Librarian service. Once the University Libraries’ online catalog has been restored, users may resume placing holds on material they would like to borrow.
HathiTrust ETAS is available to member libraries and research institutions only for as long as that member’s emergency situation persists. At Penn State, ETAS has offered access to its entire public domain corpus plus temporary, limited access to digitized in-copyright and copyright-undetermined volumes that are held by the University Libraries.
Penn State access to HathiTrust ETAS content began in early April 2020, along with National Emergency Library (Internet Archive), which ended its access in June 2020 following a Fair Use legal challenge by a few commercial publishers. In addition, several library vendors and publishers provided temporary and expanded online access to their resources, including digital access to Penn State University Press titles, through June 30, 2020.
HathiTrust is a global partnership of academic and research institutions offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world, according to its website. It was founded in 2008 by the then-12 university members of today’s Big Ten Academic Alliance, including Penn State, and the University of California system. Today, it shares more than 17 million digitized titles among nearly 240 members worldwide, including the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress.