As of January 1, 2012, the WU Libraries joined the HathiTrust Digital Library, whose goal is to digitize, preserve, and increase online access to library collections. The trust derives its name from hathi (pronounced "HAH-tee"), the Hindi word for elephant.
HathiTrust began in 2008 and has grown to over 10 million volumes. Content covers subjects and disciplines in the Humanities, Sciences, and Social Sciences in over 425 languages. There are over 175,000 vols in German.
WU faculty, students, and staff can:
- Download 2.7 million+ volumes in the public domain
- Search the full text of 10 million+ volumes
- Create personalized collections of items in HathiTrust
You can search for HathiTrust items directly from the WU Libraries' website using the eBooks tab. To limit to full text volumes, check "full view only".

You can also search directly from the HathiTrust catalog. For more information and advanced search options, visit the Libraries' guide: http://libguides.wustl.edu/hathitrust
For questions, contact Brian (bvetruba@wustl.edu ; 5-4824 ; IM/chat)