ANN ARBOR, Mich., August 11, 2010 - Singapore Management University, through a joint project with its Office of Research and its Li Ka Shing Library, joins the ranks of research institutions worldwide who contribute to ProQuest’s acclaimed Dissertations and Theses database. With the addition of Singapore Management University’s intellectual output, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, the world’s largest commercially available repository of graduate works, will expand its global reach into Singapore.

Singapore Management University is the first university in Singapore to publish with ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. This is part of a larger movement of international universities that are raising their global profiles by making their graduate works accessible through ProQuest’s service.  Most exciting is the decision to use ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Open, which provides the full text of dissertations and theses to users free of charge. The University supports open access of theses and dissertations and makes its graduate research available for free on the open Web.

“This is an exciting step as we welcome our first publishing partner from Singapore,” said Austin McLean, ProQuest’s Director of Dissertations Publishing. “We’re confident this will enhance ProQuest Dissertations & Theses’ regional coverage of dissertations and enable researchers who rely on this database to have a more richly constructed global perspective on business, legal and social sciences issues.”

Incorporated in 2000, Singapore Management University has six schools: School of Accountancy; Lee Kong Chian School of Business; School of Economics; School of Information Systems; School of Law; and School of Social Sciences.  In conjunction with the University’s initial offering of PhD programs, the Library approached ProQuest to become a part of its international academic research network.

“Distribution through ProQuest and ProQuest Dissertations & Theses is a time-tested way to ensure Singapore Management University’s graduate works reach the widest possible audience of researchers,” said University Librarian Ruth Pagell. “Partnering with ProQuest supports the library’s goals and strategic initiatives in the enhancement of research and scholarship by integrating appropriate technologies with a broadly educated and experienced staff committed to customer service.  It’s an ideal complement to our digital library and to distribution through our institutional repository.”

The Li Ka Shing Library, established in 2005, is the University’s intellectual and learning centre, providing academic and professional information resources and services that support the research and learning needs of the University community.  With a mandate to create a 21st century library built on access and service, the library and its IT partner created a digital library with a new integrated library management system, web 2.0 tools and an institutional repository. (http://library.smu.edu.sg)

Singapore Management University will release its enhanced institutional repository platform in the last quarter of 2010. The repository serves as the central knowledge base of the research and scholarly intellectual assets of the University.  Presently, it includes primarily faculty journal articles, with links to full text where available, as well as working papers.

The university will use ProQuest Dissertations & Theses and ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Open, a new service that enables authors to make their research available for free on the open Web via an easy to use search box.

About the Singapore Management University
Incorporated on 12 January 2000, Singapore Management University (SMU) aims to groom outstanding business leaders and creative entrepreneurs capable of excelling in a rapidly changing and dynamic world.  The University is known to be a pioneer for its interactive pedagogy of seminar-style teaching in small class sizes which remains its unique hallmark.  Today, SMU is home to more than 7,000 students and comprises six schools: Lee Kong Chian School of Business, School of Accountancy, School of Economics, School of Social Sciences, School of Information Systems and School of Law.  SMU offers Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD degree programmes in business and management-related areas, ranging from Accountancy, Economics, Finance, Wealth Management, Law, Information Systems and Social Science.  It also has a dedicated Office of Research, many research institutes and centres, and provides public and customised programmes for working professionals through Executive Education. Collaborations with leading institutions, including The Wharton School, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago, allow SMU to draw on academic and research strengths across all major disciplines.  The SMU campus is a state-of-the art facility located in the heart of Singapore's civic and business district. www.smu.edu.sg

About ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses is the seminal repository of intellectual property and emerging research from the world’s great universities. Chosen by United States Library of Congress as the official archive of American dissertations, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, whose precursor was begun in 1939, now encompasses more than one quarter of a billion pages, creating a unique, continually growing trove of emerging research, landmark works and surprisingly engaging prose. Researchers rely on ProQuest Dissertations & Theses as both a source of enlightening information and as a pivotal component in making their own scholarly production available to the world’s intellectual communities. The archive is managed at ProQuest by a team of scholars and technologists, who combine their talents to make the archive accessible, reliable and supported by continually advancing technology.

About ProQuest

ProQuest creates specialized information resources and technologies that provide the most successful ways for people to search, find, use, and share information.

A global leader in serving libraries of all types, ProQuest offers the expertise of such respected brands as UMI^®, Chadwyck-Healey™, SIRS^®, and eLibrary^®. With Serials Solutions^®, Ulrich's™, RefWorks^®, COS™, Dialog^® and now Bowker^® part of the ProQuest brand family, the company supports the breadth of the information community with innovative discovery solutions that power the business of books and the best in research experience.

More than a content provider or aggregator, ProQuest is an information partner, creating indispensable research solutions that connect people and information. Through innovative, user-centered discovery technology, ProQuest offers billions of pages of global content that includes historical newspapers, dissertations, and uniquely relevant resources for researchers of any level and sophistication—including content not likely to be digitized by others.

The company is nearing launch of an all-new platform that will transform delivery of several highly-regarded individual platforms into a consolidated research experience that will encompass all ProQuest family products over time.  Inspired by its customers and their end users, ProQuest is working toward a future that blends information accessibility with community to further enhance learning and encourage lifelong enrichment.

For more information, please visit www.proquest.com.