As someone who loves books and history I really appreciate the Hathitrust website. It is one of my go-to sites along with Ancestry, FamilySearch and GoogleBooks. If you aren't using it to further your research, you should. Try it out and check back from time to time. There are several options for logging in to Hathitrust. If your library or institution offers access, you will be able to use that option. Otherwise, you can log in as a guest by way of your Google, LinkedIn or Microsoft account.
You can do quick searches for phrases about items of interest as well as build collections. If you love sharing your finds, Hathitrust has options for sharing a link to a specific book in its collection or even a specific page in that book..
I like to build collections. Normally my collections are focused on People, Places or Things, but you could set up your collection however you want. That is the most important part--that it's functional for you. My "North Carolina Laws" collection has the Acts of the General Assembly of North Carolina books. These books contain information about early divorces, name changes or anything else that would require a ruling by the state. That can be particularly helpful for research in the years prior to 1850 when an age group and gender might be all the information you have.
I've been adding web links in the profile pages of my Ancestry tree. Most of the time it is a link to a website on which that person is mentioned or to a blog post that I or another researcher have written about them. I also do this with links to pages or books that are available thru Hathitrust.
I knew that users could choose to keep collections private or make them public but I had not realized that there is also an option to generate a link to transfer a collection to another user.
I have used HathiTrust extensively and share your enthusiasm :)
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