January 2025
A sub-group reached out to Jennifer Vinpoal, Associate Director of HathiTrust Digital Library for further clarification on some potential scenarios.
Jennifer advised that we think of HathiTrust ETAS as a service about people who authenticate for certain locations and thereby get access to certain items. Since the SLFs aren't campuses with a defined set of authenticable users, this will limit how users can access their holdings via ETAS as the service is currently constructed. She also explained the settings on their end that impact who receives access to what:
In the HathiTrust infrastructure, UC can be treated as a system OR each individual campus can be treated as individual campuses. This binary hinges on a setting called "mapto_inst_id: universityofcalifornia", in the ETAS infrastructure.
SETTING ON: If the “mapto” setting is ON, the UC system is treated as a system. Thus if one campus has ETAS activated, it and only it has access to everything available in the whole UC system.
SETTING OFF: If the “mapto” setting is OFF, every individual campus in the system is treated as an individual campus and anything about the system is disregarded. This means that for an individual UC campus with ETAS activated in this scenario, that campus’s users would have access only to items available in their own campus library (i.e., they would not have access to everything else available in the whole UC system).
The chart below spells out the impact of this setting.
Can a UC library see SLF holdings if ETAS is turned on? | ||
mapto set to ON (UC treated like a system) | mapto set to OFF (UC not treated like a system) | |
If SLF-N is included in Berkeley holdings AND ETAS enabled for Berkeley | YES SLF-N is treated as Berkeley holdings | YES SLF-N is treated as Berkeley holdings |
If SLF-N is included in Berkeley holdings AND ETAS enabled for any campus besides Berkeley | YES | NO SLF-N is treated as Berkeley holdings, thus non-Berkeley campuses can't see Berkeley holdings. |
If SLF-S is included in UCLA holdings AND ETAS is enabled for UCLA | YES SLF-S is treated as UCLA holdings | YES SLF-S is treated as UCLA holdings |
If SLF-S is included in UCLA holdings AND ETAS is enabled for any campus besides UCLA | YES | NO SLF-S is treated as UCLA holdings, thus non-UCLA campuses can't see UCLA holdings. |
If SLF-N and SLF-S holdings are submitted separately AND Any UC campus has ETAS enabled | Any UC library with ETAS enabled: YES | NO because ETAS is enabled for users, not for items. SLFs would be treated as separate "campuses" within the system. The SLFs don't have authenticatable users like the other UC campuses. |
If SLF-N and SLF-S holdings are submitted separately AND One or both SLFs have an emergency, can ETAS be enabled for the SLFs? | NO ETAS is enabled for users, not for items. SLFs do not have authenticable users like the other UC campuses, so ETAS cannot be enabled for them. | NO ETAS is enabled for users, not for tems. SLFs do not have authenticable users like the other UC campuses, so ETAS cannot be enabled for them. |
Given the information above we recommend:
- "mapto_inst_id: universityofcalifornia" should always be set to ON, allowing our users to have the access to the most items in an emergency situation.
- Non-SLF-host campuses should not include SLF holdings in their print holdings sent to HathiTrust.
September 2024
In July 2024 CoUL accepted the December 2023 UC ETAS and Lending Task Force Final Report and thanked the task force for its time and thoughtful work. CoUL asked that the task force and/or DOC additionally carry out the following (prior to the report being made public). In order to carry out this task a sub-group of the original task force met to discuss these questions. They then communicated with Jennifer Vinpoal, Associate Director of HathiTrust Digital Library to discuss the items:
- Further reassess and investigate how SLF holdings can be available to any/all campuses during an ETAS activation (whether the emergency situation involves one campus, multiple campuses or all campuses). CoUL feedback: The SLFs are system wide service centers; during the COVID-19 pandemic, SLF holdings were treated as UC-wide collections and available UC-wide through ETAS; this should be maintained.
Jennifer reiterated that while HathiTrust is currently documenting user stories forpotential enhancements of the ETAS service, there are no changes currently planned. Furthermore any potential changes would need to undergo legal, policy, and technical review by HathiTrust. Therefore SLF holdings cannot be made available to any/all campuses during an ETAS activation unless the entire system has activated ETAS. Verify that legal consultation was carried out regarding applicable components of the report and legal interpretation.
Jennifer did not feel that HT’s General Counsel needed to review the report.
Verify that HathiTrust reviewed and agrees with UC’s assessment and implementation of the HathiTrust guidelines; and investigate whether there is precedent regarding systems and consortia with shared repositories (and ETAS activation).
Jennifer is comfortable with the assessment and implementation of the HathiTrust guidelines as listed in the report and is comfortable with them being posted online.The report should not be made public until the reassessment of the SLFs has been carried out and HathiTrust verifies UC’s interpretation.
As mentioned, there are no planned changes on the horizon for activation guidelines or difference in interpretation of these guidelines. Therefore the report is ready to be posted.
We want to take a moment to address why the answers above might seem different than what occurred during the pandemic. During this time all UC Libraries were closed and all UC patrons had access to all items available via ETAS that were held by any UC library. There was a period of about 6 weeks in which the UC Libraries began opening on different dates. As some UCs reopened before others, their access to ETAS was removed. However, during this period the closed campuses still had access to all items available via ETAS held by any UC. We made sure not to borrow or lend physical copies available in the system to the closed campuses. We were in frequent communication with HathiTrust during this time period and were told this was okay. However a single campus closing, or several campuses but not the full system closing, is treated differently by HathiTrust.
Were a campus or campuses, less than the entire UC system, to enable ETAS today, that closed campus’ users would have access online through ETAS to all of their library’s holdings available in ETAS. Users from open UC campuses would not be able to access online any holdings from the closed campus through ETAS even if they are unique titles held by the closed campus. Open UC campuses should not lend any print copies held by the closed campus Library to users of the closed campus via interlibrary loan as we are part of a library system. However print copies from outside the UC system could be borrowed by the closed campus for their patrons. It is the closed campus’ responsibility to ensure this is being followed. We have added this clarification to the report, fixed broken links, and clarified some language.
Respectfully,
Paul Fogel (California Digital Library)
Sara Davidson Squibb (DOC - Liaison)
Tim Converse (UC Berkeley)
Bonnie Hain-Anderson (UC Davis)
Kristine Ferry (UC Irvine – Co-Chair)
Ross Anastos (UC Merced)
Carlo Medina (UC Los Angeles)
Carla Arbagey (UC Riverside)
Marti Kallal (UC Santa Barbara)
Sarah Lindsey (UC Santa Cruz – Co-Chair)
Judea D’Arnaud (UC San Diego)
Sarah McClung (UC San Francisco)