You’ve put in all that work. Your thesis/dissertation has been accepted (congratulations!). You’re ready to turn the required print copies in to Langsdale for binding. But, did you know that with a few additional keystrokes you can put an electronic copy into a database that is accessed by researchers worldwide? And at no charge to you.
If you are writing a doctoral dissertation, you probably know about a departmental requirement to submit a copy to ProQuest. If you are writing a master’s thesis, you may not have heard of ProQuest, as it is a requirement for only a few. What you may not know is how submitting to ProQuest—requirement or not—can benefit you.
Langsdale subscribes to ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text (listed on our Databases page as “Digital Dissertations & Theses”), as do many other universities and research institutions. You can check it out here. Subscribers can not only search but also retrieve the full text of hundreds of thousands of theses and dissertations. Even if a researcher is not affiliated with a subscribing institution, s/he can search the abstracts, and your work will be discovered by the research world!
When it comes time for you to submit your thesis or dissertation to the library, you will find instructions on our website. These instructions give information on submitting your thesis or dissertation to Digital Dissertations. Even if you are not required to do so, think about submitting anyway. Anyone can submit their thesis or dissertation to ProQuest. (Did I mention that it’s free?)
To get more information from the author’s (your!) perspective, check out ProQuest’s website.
Questions? Contact Betty Landesman, Head of Technical Services and Content Management at Langsdale Library, 410-837-4204, blandesman@ubalt.edu.