Collections are a useful way of pulling together material. Anyone can search collections users have created and made public. With our institutional membership, Pitt users can also create their own collections and choose to keep them private or publish them for public use.

Collections can serve a variety of uses. For instance, you can gather together all the works of your chosen author for easy access as you do your research or analyze word usage within a body of literature by searching just the works in a collection. 

To get started with collections, first make sure you are logged into the HathiTrust website. From there, click on 'The Collection' dropdown on the top navigation bar and then click on 'Featured Collections.' 

Shared collections have been created and made public by HathiTrust users. There are a variety of ways to sort these public collections, including by number of items, title, and owner. You may also search public collections by keyword. There is no advanced search option for collections.

Creating a new collection is simple:

1. Log in to HathiTrust.
2. From the Collections page, click on 'New Collection' under the collections search box. 
3. Name your collection and provide a short description.
4. Choose whether to make it a private collection (only you can see it) or a public collection (all HathiTrust users can see it).
5. Click 'Save Changes.'  

Note: a private collection can be made public at a later date.

Once you've created a collection, you can add items from the HathiTrust Digital Library.

To add items to a collection when viewing search results:

1. On the search results page check the box next to any item you want to add to a collection.
2. Select the appropriate collection from the drop-down menu in the dark grey box above the search results. If you don't have any created collections, you'll be prompted to create one.
3. Click 'Add Selected.' 
4. A message will appear stating the items have been added to your collection.