Spring 2009
Finding dissertations
Much of the very specialized research with a discipline is never published in a journal article or a book, appearing only in a dissertation or a thesis. Some research that will later be repurposed into a published work appears years earlier in a dissertation. The good news is that recent dissertations written in the United States and Canada can be found relatively easily. The bad news is that they will not always be as readily available as formally published works.
Finding Dissertations
- Dissertation Abstracts - Selectively indexes and abstracts masters theses and dissertations from the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Europe. Indexes dissertations from 1861 to present, abstracts since 1980, thesis abstracts since 1988.
- Historical Abstracts - HA will let you limit your search by "Dissertations".
- WorldCat - Try adding "Dissertation" on to your search in WorldCat.
- Note: In practice, Dissertation Abstracts is probably the only place you'll go specifically looking for dissertations. Dissertations will turn up, though, in the course of your searching for other items like books and articles. As with all the library research you do, pay attention to what it is you're finding. All that "meta" information is useful in your search.
Getting dissertations - Basics
- As a first step, you'll want to check the catalog/Summit to see if a copy of the dissertation you seek is available for request. It won't often be available but, just like with a regular book, you need to check first.
- If the dissertation is not available at Reed/in Summit, place an Interlibrary Loan request for the dissertation. The library will request the dissertation from a lending library if available (rarely) or purchase a copy of the dissertation and later add it to our collection. Because we will, in many cases, actually be purchasing a copy of the dissertation, it is imperative that you carefully read the abstract before purchasing to ensure that this is actually something you want/need for your paper.
- Sometimes, a dissertation is not available for loan or for purchase. In these cases, we simply can't get the dissertation for you. Except...
Getting dissertations - When you really feel like acting like a librarian
A couple of thoughts about getting dissertations when they aren't available:
- Many universities and some colleges have begun to make students' work available on the open web. Sometimes you can find an electronic version of a dissertation through the library catalog or, more likely, from the school's "institutional repository". We'll talk about this briefly in class.
- If you can figure out how to get in touch with the author of the dissertation, go ahead and ask them if they will send you a copy of it. They might also be able to give you some other suggestions for sources you could use.
- Did the author publish something else based on their dissertation work?
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