I’ve just discovered two web sites that provide access to dissertations from British universities and from South African ones. This is the equivalent of the American UMI/Proquest site.
The British site is EThoS and the dissertations available (they’re called “theses” in Brit lingo) are free for downloading. (You can also order a printed copy for a cost.) Many are online now and can be downloaded fairly quickly. Some will take longer to be available after you request them, but apparently they will make an effort to make them available. A note on the site indicates that they have had very high demand, so there may be a delay. The first one I tried was available for downloading in less than an hour; the second I’m still waiting for a day later.
The S. African site is UnisaETD, University of South Africa Electronic Theses & Dissertations. I’m not as impressed with this one. For one thing, it is only accessible on Windows and only with IE. That means they have not used access standards but built it on a proprietary set of Active X controls. Nor is the content nearly as extensive, at least for biblical studies. But it’s worth a look.
HT: Jim Darlack, Old in the New blog
Wow, this is very nice. I’ve spent many hours and a small fortune fighting with the old system to get British dissertations in the past. This is wonderful news. Now if only ProQuest would do this without colossal subscription charges…
Yes, it’s progress. Unfortunately, you librarians can’t put *either* UMI/Proquest or EThoS/BL diss into your collection (per their agreements). But at least you can show students where to find them. And perhaps there might be a way to include selected titles in a library catalog with a notation that they are available at no cost from particular places (i.e., without a direct link).
Pingback: Update on British dissertations/theses source « NT Resources Blog