Finding theses
Learning objectives
By the end of this module, you will know how to find theses from:
the University of New England
other universities in Australia and New Zealand
North American institutions
European universities
universities world-wide.
University of New England Theses
The University Library keeps copies of most Masters and PhD theses and some Honours theses. If you know the author's name or the exact thesis title you can locate the item with a simple Browse search in the UNE Library Catalogue. Finding theses on a particular topic requires a Keyword search.
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Go to the Keyword search screen
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In the first box, type university of new england theses
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Select Title as the Search Type
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Choose AND from the drop-down box to the right
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Type your keyword in the second box.
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Select All as the Search Type
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Click on the Search button.
If you search for university of new england theses AND account*, you will find theses with words such as account, accounts, accounting, accountant or accountants in the title.
Many older theses have been microfilmed and have a call number beginning with MF000. These are in the Microform collection on the Ground Floor. More recent theses are held in paper on the Lower Ground Floor. Call numbers beginning with ED indicate Masters of Educational Administration theses. All other theses have call numbers starting with TH.
If the thesis you require is not in the catalogue, it is possible that it is held elsewhere on campus. Schools or Faculties keep copies of fourth year, Honours and M.Litt theses. Contact the relevant School or Faculty if you need to read these theses.
Theses from other Australian and New Zealand universities
Libraries Australia
Libraries Australia provides you with a quick means of searching for theses and dissertations held in Australian university libraries.
Go to the Libraries Australia search screen.
Click on the Advanced Search tab.
Choose your search type and keywords.
Click in the check box next to the word Theses.
Click on the Search button.
Entries for theses available as part of the Australasian Digital Theses Project (ADT) include links to the full-text of the thesis in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format.
New Zealand Theses
Theses at New Zealand Universities can be found using the NZ National Bibliographic Database or by searching library catalogues at individual universities. Search the National Bibliographic Database with the keyword "thesis". Note: access to the NZ National Bibliographic database is limited to subscribing institutions.
New Zealand Theses are also included in the Australasian Digital Theses project.
Australasian Digital Theses (ADT) Project
The ADT aims to build a comprehensive electronic archive of Master and PhD theses from universities in Australia and New Zealand. Theses are usually available in full-text in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. Pull-down menus allow you to easily construct complex searches from the ADT Advanced Search window.
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Searching ADT Search the ADT database for theses on your topic by clicking on the button below and entering some relevant keywords. |
ARROW Discovery Service
Another way of searching for Australian digital theses is through the ARROW Discovery Service. In addition to providing information on unpublished theses, the Service provides details of preprints, postprints, journal articles, images, working papers and technical reports. The ARROW databases contains more than 137,000 records harvested from 23 university repositories and 12 other research collections. Most of the records in the ARROW database include links to full text.
You can search the ARROW database online at the Arrow site.Obtaining copies of Australian theses
Older theses from other Australian libraries are usually available for loan or purchase. Formats and permissions vary from university to university. Your institutional library's document delivery service will usually act for you in acquiring theses from other Australian universities.
Increasingly, theses are being sold by Australian universities over the internet. The following universities have web pages where you can order copies of theses for yourself:
UK and Irish theses
Index to Theses is an online database which lists all UK and Irish theses from 1716 to the present. Index to Theses also provides abstracts for theses from 1970. Access is by subscription only. If your institution does not have a subscription to Index to Theses, details of most British doctoral theses are available in the British Library Catalogue. Perform an Advanced search with thesis as an added keyword.
In most instances, Index to Theses features abstracts only. Many full text theses accepted for Doctoral degrees by British universities are available from the British Library (BL) as part of the British Theses Service. Further information, and online ordering, is available from the British Library site.
A growing number of UK theses are available in digital form from institutional repositories. Soon these will accessible through the Electronic Theses Online Service (EThOS), a UK digital thesis initiative which will make online theses available from over 90 UK Higher Education Institutions.
United States theses
The most complete source for theses from North American universities is ProQuest’s Dissertation Abstracts. This database includes over 2.3 million PhD and Masters theses from the United States and Canada. Contact your institutional library for access information, as access is by subscription only.
Another ProQuest product is ProQuest Dissertation Express. Using the Dissertation Express, you can can search for theses by title for free. With a credit card, you can order an unbound copy of older theses for US$61.00 per copy for Express delivery (5 to 7 days) or US$41.00 for regular mail delivery (2 to 3 weeks).
UNE’s ProQuest subscription includes 30,000 full-text dissertations. Most of these theses are in the areas of business, psychology, physical sciences, health and education, although there is also a smaller number of theses in other disciplines. To your limit the search to dissertations you need to choose Dissertations from the Publications pull-down menu.
Note that only the citation and abstracts of the theses in ProQuest are indexed. Keyword searching will not pick up words from the full text content.
Canadian theses
The National Library of Canada's Theses Canada Portal provides free online access to the full-text of Canadian dissertations and theses from 1998 onwards.
Go to the Theses Canada Portal.
Click on Find a Thesis.
Click on Search.
Click in the All theses or Electronic Theses radio button.
Enter your keywords in the Index box or Full text box.
Click on Submit.
National thesis collections
Many European countries have digital theses projects or include information on theses in national library catalogues. There are a number of theses collections for Europe:
Dutch theses
NARCIS provides access to the full-text of over 12,000 PhD theses from Dutch universities. Many of these theses are in English. All are available for immediate download. To search for a Dutch thesis:
- Go to the English-language version of the NARCIS main page
- Click on the Promise of Science tag
- Enter your search terms
- Click on Search.
French theses
The Système universitaire de documentation (SUDOC) provides an online catalog for theses holdings at French academic libraries. Coverage goes back to 1972 for theses in the humanities and social sciences.
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Go to the English-language version of the SUDOC main page
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Click on Sudoc - Catalogue
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Click on Extended Search
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Uncheck everything except Dissertations under Type of Publication
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Enter your keywords
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Click on Search.
German theses
German digital theses are available through dissonline.de. Follow these steps:
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Go to the dissonline.de full-text search window
Enter your keywords
Click on the Suchen button.
In a many cases, you can download the full-text of a digital thesis at no charge.
Finnish theses
The University of Helsinki's e-Thesis site provides the full-text of recent theses. Many of these theses are in English. To search the University's database:
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Go to the e-Thesis main page
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Enter your keywords in the search box (searching is based on Google)
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Click on the Search button.
Italian Theses
Tesionline allows you to search Italian theses.
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Go to the Tesionline search page
Enter your keywords
Click on Cerca for a keyword search or Cerca frase esatta to run a phrase search.
Spanish theses
An excellent starting point is Bases de Datos de Tesis Doctorales (TESEO). This source includes details of theses completed at Spanish universities since 1976. It can be searched by author, title, keyword, abstract, and university. To find Spanish theses:
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Go to the TESEO search page.
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Enter your keywords.
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Click on Buscar en Teseo.
Swiss Theses
Helveticat is the online catalogue of the Swiss National Library. To find Swiss theses:
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Go to Helveticat's English-language interface.
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Enter a keyword in the Quick Search box.
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Add diss after your search term to restrict your search to dissertations.
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Click on Search.
For further information on accessing theses from Europe, see the Guide page at E-thesis developments across Europe.
Finding theses elsewhere
The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is a project designed to make accessible digital theses from libraries across the world, including theses from the Europe, the UK and North America.
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Searching NDLTD You can search the NDLTD using the search box below. The search syntax is Google-like and easy to use. |
Institutional repositories
Many full-text theses are also available in institutional repositories at universities around the world. One place to begin is the OpenDOAR. In addition to providing links to institutional repositories around the world, OpenDOAR lets you search for repositories or search repository contents.
Summary
This module has shown you how to find theses from:
the University of New England
other universities in Australia and New Zealand
North American institutions
European universities
- universities world-wide.
 | Self-test Try these quick self-test questions to assess what you have learnt from this module. |