Search university press books

Why use this collection?

Search UP books is the most comprehensive way to search the full-text content of books that were published by university presses or presses related to an institution of higher learning. 

Pulling from the 8,000,000+ digitized books in the HathiTrust, this is the only database that limits its search to the book publications of university presses.  

Search UP books to add historical depth to your basic and systematic reviews of scholarly literature, especially as a means to incorporate scholarly monographs into your searches. 

What is a university press? And why does that matter?

University presses are publishers at institutions of higher education that review, edit, and distribute texts under the imprint of their institution. 

The majority of the texts these presses publish are considered scholarly research, and the majority of this research has undergone an extensive editorial and/or peer review process to ensure it meets the standards of its field. 

What is included in this collection?

While university presses publish journals, conference proceedings, and other documents, this collection includes only books from member presses of

• Association of University Presses,
• Association of Canadian University Presses,
• Association of European University Presses,
• Asociación de Editoriales Universitarias de América Latina y el Caribe and the
• African University Presses open data set. 

While the vast majority of the books herein are considered “scholarly” monographs, some of the books are reprintings or translations of literature, original artistic works, textbooks, and a few other miscellaneous materials that may not conform to a conservative definition of a scholarly book, but which were nevertheless printed by a university press.

What isn't included in this collection?

Search UP books limits your search to only books published under the imprint of university presses and other institutions of higher education.  Though university presses are not monolithic or infallible, this minimum standard for the collection ensures that the vast majority of its results are held to the highest standards of scholarship at the time they were published.   

Search UP books does not include material from university presses that have been labeled as something other than a book (e.g. a journal or film) and it does not include book publications from university presses that are not in the HathiTrust. 

The HathiTrust includes over 8,000,000 books, but it is likely that some older volumes from the aforementioned university presses have not yet been digitized and most very recent volumes will not yet be digitized for a few more years. 

Many presses publish high-quality scholarship that are unaffiliated with a university. Those are not included.  Presses from East Asia are under-represented due to some technical limitations in our methodology.  Search UP books is the largest available collection for those looking to limit their searches to university press books, despite these limitations.

Does the collection include the latest books published by university presses?

No.  This is a significant limitation. The collection is made from digitized copies of print books, and since university presses now routinely release born-digital versions of their books, it does not include most titles released this way. 

Search UP books is the most comprehensive way to conduct a search that’s limited to books published by university presses before 2010. Supplement with additional searching for more recent university press books. 

Why does the collection contain material with racist, sexist, ethnocentric, xenophobic, ablist, homophobic, transphobic, and otherwise exclusionary or discriminatory research?

Search UP books is a way to access material that has been published by university presses across their existence, which stretches back to the 16th century. 

While the books represent the highest standards of scholarship in their time and place, those standards are not infallible, and some even worked to contribute to the systematic exclusion of categories of people deemed by a dominant culture to be inferior in some way.  

Have a critical perspective toward the collection and to utilize the collection to highlight the depth and pervasiveness of discriminatory and exclusionary practices and systems of thought. 

How do I use the collection?

Search UP books is a curated “collection” built within the HathiTrust. 

You can do a basic search in the search box at the top of the collection and you can access a variety of filters on the collection’s sidebar. 

You can also conduct advanced searches and can consult a variety of advanced search tips. 

Note: because it is a collection in the HathiTrust Digital Library, if you use the search at the top of the page, you will search the entire HathiTrust.