UNL Libraries completes digital archive of 7,200 doctoral dissertations

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries have completed a project to digitize nearly 7,200 doctoral dissertations as a record of the university's intellectual history.

The digital archive of academic papers was created in partnership with ProQuest Information and Learning's Digital Archiving and Access Program. ProQuest Information and Learning, a unit of ProQuest Co., creates and publishes databases for libraries and educational institutions worldwide.

"Through this new program, we are able to provide access to a half-century of scholarly research developed in our own doctoral studies programs," said Joan Giesecke, dean of libraries. "Through our partnership with ProQuest, we have created an archive that not only revives scholarly interest in older documents, but also improves access to all of our dissertations."

The ProQuest Digital Archiving and Access Program offers a full range of thesis/dissertation services, combining the best of bibliographic publishing, microform preservation and online access. It films and archives paper copies for posterity; digitizes and hosts them on the Internet; provides free campuswide electronic access to the full text of UNL's dissertations; and includes them in its online dissertation database, used at every top academic library in the world. UNL began digitizing its dissertations in March 2004. It is one of the four largest such projects undertaken by ProQuest, based in Ann Arbor, Mich.

"Many institutions find that the dissertations in their collections are in poor condition or difficult to access," said Austin McLean, ProQuest's director of publishing, dissertations. "As the official offsite repository for the Library of Congress for digital dissertations and masters' theses in digital format, we have considerable expertise in developing and managing electronic collections of academic research. This new, comprehensive program helps universities like UNL archive the university's intellectual history and at the same time provide easy access to these important records of their scholarly heritage."

Scholars, UNL doctoral program graduates and others interested in viewing the digital archive may access the database by visiting http://iris.unl.edu, view Electronic Resources, and look for "Current Research @ UNL" under Indexes by Title.

CONTACT: Joan Barnes, Development & Outreach Librarian, UNL Libraries, (402) 472-6987