Content area
Full text
Theses, including doctoral dissertations, are a "cherished academic genre" of literature that American academic libraries have held in their collections for over a century dating back to the first dissertation submitted, "a six-page, hand written thesis at Yale University in 1860" ([28] Moxley, 2001, Tradition and ETDs section, para. 2). "The quality of a university is reflected by the quality of its students' intellectual products. Theses and dissertations reflect an institution's ability to lead students and support original work" ([44] UNESCO, 2001, 2.1 section).
Theses and dissertations from all academic departments become part of the university's library collection. Once approved, students submit to the university library several print copies that the library binds, catalogs, and shelves. In general, circulation is limited to the university community, as most libraries do not lend theses and dissertations through interlibrary loan. Circulation records from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) show that 15,335 theses and dissertations were approved between 1990 and 1994. In 1998, 3,967 were checked out, which is 3.86 percent of the total ([28] Moxley, 2001, para. 2). In other words each one was checked out 0.0386 times.
Technological changes in the 1970s enabled students to produce theses and dissertations on electric typewriters, a vast improvement from the manual typewriters before that. By the 1980s the digital revolution arrived and word processing software programs eliminated the need to create carbon copies. Users could save copies of their work in digital format, edit their work before printing, and print multiple copies that were all originals.
When students want a wider audience for their work, they submit print copies at their own cost to University Microfilms Dissertation Abstracts (UMI). UMI, now owned by ProQuest, is the central repository and disseminator for North American print dissertations for the past 50 years ([28] Moxley, 2001, Lost opportunities section, para. 4). UMI converted them to portable document format (PDF) files and made the copies available through their current research service.
Moving to electronic format
In 1987, UMI initiated a movement toward digital dissertations by calling a meeting to discuss the concept ([11] Crowe, 1998, UMI section). In 1992, the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), the Council of Graduate Schools, and UMI started...