Find Dissertations

How to find dissertations at Illinois

Illinois Online Catalog: The Illinois library should have at least one copy of all dissertations deposited at Illinois. A non-circulating archival copy is held in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, but a circulating copy can often be located in other libraries. To begin searching for dissertations, use the Advanced Search in our online catalog to search by author, title, subject or department. Here is an example of a subject search for psychology dissertations written in 2003:

  1. Use the Advanced Search in the online catalog.
  2. Type Theses in the first search box and Psychology in the second.
  3. In the "Search by:" dropdown menu at the right, select Subject Words. If you want to limit by a certain year, type the year in the third search box and select Subject Words in the dropdown menu.
  4. Click on the Search button.

Following the above directions, the search screen should look like this:

theses

Your results screen will look like this:

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Take the call number to the Main Stacks and request this item. You can borrow this dissertation and make copies.


Digital Dissertations

Digital Dissertations: Digital Dissertations is a database that contains dissertation citations back to 1861, abstracts back to 1980, and the full text of many dissertations from 1997 (and sometimes earlier) to present. Masters theses have been selectively indexed since 1962. Almost all dissertations written at Illinois from 1997 forward are available as a free full-text download in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format. Here is an example of a subject search for education dissertations written at Illinois between 2000 and 2004:

  1. In the first search box, type Education and select Subject (SU) from the dropdown menu at the right.
  2. In the second search box, type University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and select School (SC) from the dropdown menu at the right. (Note: The full name of the school needs to be typed out, so "University of Illinois" or "UIUC" will not work.)
  3. To limit by year, type in the years 2000 to 2004 in the Degree Date from boxes.
  4. Click the Search button.

Following the above directions, the search screen should look like this:

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After performing your search and locating a dissertation of interest, you'll see a Free Download button at the left of the dissertation record if a full-text download is available, as seen below. If you click that button, you will be prompted for your email address and a link to the dissertation will be emailed to you shortly thereafter.

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If the full text is not available for download, a print copy of the dissertation should be available in the Illinois library--just do a search in the online catalog for the dissertation title to determine its location.

Abstracts for pre-1980 dissertations are available in Dissertation Abstracts, the print version of Digital Dissertations. You can view it in the Reference Library on the first northwest index table (call number: 013 M583).

Non-Illinois Dissertations

DISSERTATIONS AVAILABLE AT ILLINOIS

DISSERTATIONS NOT AVAILABLE AT ILLINOIS

TO BORROW A DISSERTATION

Interlibrary Loan Borrowing Office: If a dissertation is not available in any of the above locations, the Interlibrary Loan Borrowing Office can help you acquire a copy. Requests can be made online. If they cannot find a circulating copy, they will email you and give you the option of ordering through Dissertation Express, a fee-based service that obtains dissertations in 4-5 business days. The library pays for the dissertation, and retains it after you are finished with it. You, in turn, pay the $15 Dissertation Express shipping fee. For more information about this service, see the Interlibrary Loan Office's Dissertation Express FAQ entry.

 

KEEPING TRACK OF DISSERTATIONS IN  YOUR FIELD

The Digital Dissertations database includes over 2 million items, with thousands of titles added each year. ProQuest, the vendor for Digital Dissertations, offers an RSS feed that can help you keep up to date on new theses and dissertations in your field. Find out more at the ProQuest RSS Feeds site.

Why would you be interested in keeping track of dissertations through an RSS feed? 

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You can use an aggregator to keep track of your feeds e.g. Bloglines or Google Reader. You can learn more about how to set up a current awareness service.

 

If you're having trouble finding what you need, please Ask A Librarian for additional assistance.