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> master/PhD theses: sorry. It’s probably hopeless if it’s pre-2000. If you have a university proxy, you may be able to get a copy off ProQuest. Otherwise, you

> master/PhD theses: sorry. It’s probably hopeless if it’s pre-2000. If you have a university proxy, you may be able to get a copy off ProQuest. Otherwise, you need full university ILL services, and even that might not be enough (a surprising number of universities appear to restrict access only to the university students/faculty, with the complicating factor of most theses being stored on microfilm). At least in the Netherlands there is [1] which indexes many papers/theses including very old ones, and many are freely accessible. [1] https://www.narcis.nl/ https://www.narcis.nl/

btrettel 8y ago
I've used my (US) university's interlibrary loan (ILL) service many times. In my experience theses and dissertations are treated like any other book in interlibrary loan. Local public libraries also often have interlibrary loan, perhaps for a fee. So I can't see why theses would be inaccessible via ILL outside of a university. I have run into some theses and dissertations being restricted to people affiliated with the particular university which holds the book, but that's rare in my experience. More common is the case of rare books (few copies available, like in the case of theses/dissertations) being marked as "library use only", so you can't take the book outside of the library. But I have received many of these via ILL, and my university simply respects the wishes of the book's owner by not allowing me to take the book outside of the library I requested the book from.
- gwern 8y ago
  As a kid, I made heavy use of my public library's ILL (sorry, taxpayers), but I never heard any whisper that university-level ILL of any documents was possible, and the forms my librarians filled out strongly implied that only books & CDs were ever contemplated. > In my experience theses and dissertations are treated like any other book in interlibrary loan. Yes, but you have to be at a university in the first place. Life is grand if you're a student with full privileges - ILL is, IMO, one of the most underrated fringe benefits of being a student - but once you're out, you're out in the cold. I've discussed this with any number of people, including people at think-tanks without university affiliations, and no one's come up with a good solution how to get back into the ILL system short of hiring students to do requests for you. > I have run into some theses and dissertations being restricted to people affiliated with the particular university which holds the book, but that's rare in my experience. Yes, fairly rare, but it still happens. Unfortunately, I don't know what happens when you ILL them because I didn't run into any examples until after I graduated. I'm also puzzled when I run into online open access theses which are, however, embargoed for a year... (I simply schedule a reminder to go back, but I'm perplexed as to what could possibly be the point of that.)
  - btrettel 8y ago
    Have you tried requesting a thesis or dissertation via a public library's interlibrary loan service? I am fairly confident that most universities would lend a thesis or dissertation to a public library. I don't see any clear reason why they would not other than snobbery. (Edit: And I can recall a few instances where my university got a book via ILL from a public library. So the converse does happen, at least.) While I have not used public library ILL, my impressions is that the difference is more in scale than access. (Though access surely is reduced.) I recall reading public library ILL policies that charged for requests and only allowed one request at a time. That would be a lot worse than what I have right now, but much better than nothing. (Also, I have used ILL at two government labs and I would say the difference again was more in scale than access, and that these labs were somewhere between public and university libraries.) There are many paid document delivery services. Here's my university's one: https://www.lib.utexas.edu/find-borrow-request/interlibrary-loan/outside-orgs-individuals https://www.lib.utexas.edu/find-borrow-request/interlibrary-... I've used a few paid document delivery services before. They weren't cheap, but I was able to get some things that my university's ILL wasn't able to. Personally, I'd prefer some sort of scan request barter system. I scan X pages for you, you scan X pages for me. I've done similar things informally. r/scholar hasn't worked out well for anything not already digitized. I've thought before that someone should make a scan request website that gives you credits for fulfilling a request. Hopefully the lawyers would stay away from this as these items can't really be obtained any other way; if they were available for sale, people would buy them. As for embargoed theses, my impression is that usually the author wants to get a patent on something discussed in the thesis. In US law, you can only get a patent within a 1 year after publicly disclosing the invention. So the embargo gives them more time. There likely are other reasons as well, but this is the only one I've encountered.
    - gwern 8y ago
      > I don't see any clear reason why they would not other than snobbery. Snobbery is a pretty good reason for anything, I've found. In any case, it could be many things: expense (as my university regularly reminded us, each ILL cost like $20 on net), low demand from patrons (even if self-fulfilling, still a valid reason), lack of trust, not being plugged into the right ILL system/software... I don't recall any of the books I ILLed from my public library being indicated as being from universities, though there were several close to us. I suppose I should try my public library when I have some spare time. I'm almost certain they'd be unable to get either books or theses or papers, but it'd be interesting to know the specific reason why not. > There are many paid document delivery services. Here's my university's one: Yes, actually, I know someone who used that one last month. (Scan quality could've been much better, IMO.) It is, unfortunately, rare to have a straightforward 'pay us $X and we'll give you a copy of any thesis' service linked or mentioned on the library website, and they are only for that library's holdings ("scans of book chapters and articles from the UT Libraries collection" ie not anyone else's). I would complain a lot less if most universities had it! I've sometimes wondered if more university libraries have it than I think they do, and they just hide it. > As for embargoed theses, my impression is that usually the author wants to get a patent on something discussed in the thesis. That would be reasonable, but in the subjects I usually research, that would make little sense. I think the last embargoed student thesis I ran into was a study on the stimulant effect of nicotine on cognitive performance; hard to see any patent on that being possible, much less profitable to apply to.
copperx 8y ago
Regarding the hopeless comment: if the author is still alive the easiest way to get a copy is, well, by emailing the author. Unless the author is a hotshot, they should be able to procure an electronic copy, even if it's was done in pre-word processing times. Most authors would be flattered, not inconvenienced.

btrettel 8y ago

I've used my (US) university's interlibrary loan (ILL) service many times. In my experience theses and dissertations are treated like any other book in interlibrary loan. Local public libraries also often have interlibrary loan, perhaps for a fee. So I can't see why theses would be inaccessible via ILL outside of a university. I have run into some theses and dissertations being restricted to people affiliated with the particular university which holds the book, but that's rare in my experience. More common is the case of rare books (few copies available, like in the case of theses/dissertations) being marked as "library use only", so you can't take the book outside of the library. But I have received many of these via ILL, and my university simply respects the wishes of the book's owner by not allowing me to take the book outside of the library I requested the book from.

gwern 8y ago
As a kid, I made heavy use of my public library's ILL (sorry, taxpayers), but I never heard any whisper that university-level ILL of any documents was possible, and the forms my librarians filled out strongly implied that only books & CDs were ever contemplated. > In my experience theses and dissertations are treated like any other book in interlibrary loan. Yes, but you have to be at a university in the first place. Life is grand if you're a student with full privileges - ILL is, IMO, one of the most underrated fringe benefits of being a student - but once you're out, you're out in the cold. I've discussed this with any number of people, including people at think-tanks without university affiliations, and no one's come up with a good solution how to get back into the ILL system short of hiring students to do requests for you. > I have run into some theses and dissertations being restricted to people affiliated with the particular university which holds the book, but that's rare in my experience. Yes, fairly rare, but it still happens. Unfortunately, I don't know what happens when you ILL them because I didn't run into any examples until after I graduated. I'm also puzzled when I run into online open access theses which are, however, embargoed for a year... (I simply schedule a reminder to go back, but I'm perplexed as to what could possibly be the point of that.)
- btrettel 8y ago
  Have you tried requesting a thesis or dissertation via a public library's interlibrary loan service? I am fairly confident that most universities would lend a thesis or dissertation to a public library. I don't see any clear reason why they would not other than snobbery. (Edit: And I can recall a few instances where my university got a book via ILL from a public library. So the converse does happen, at least.) While I have not used public library ILL, my impressions is that the difference is more in scale than access. (Though access surely is reduced.) I recall reading public library ILL policies that charged for requests and only allowed one request at a time. That would be a lot worse than what I have right now, but much better than nothing. (Also, I have used ILL at two government labs and I would say the difference again was more in scale than access, and that these labs were somewhere between public and university libraries.) There are many paid document delivery services. Here's my university's one: https://www.lib.utexas.edu/find-borrow-request/interlibrary-loan/outside-orgs-individuals https://www.lib.utexas.edu/find-borrow-request/interlibrary-... I've used a few paid document delivery services before. They weren't cheap, but I was able to get some things that my university's ILL wasn't able to. Personally, I'd prefer some sort of scan request barter system. I scan X pages for you, you scan X pages for me. I've done similar things informally. r/scholar hasn't worked out well for anything not already digitized. I've thought before that someone should make a scan request website that gives you credits for fulfilling a request. Hopefully the lawyers would stay away from this as these items can't really be obtained any other way; if they were available for sale, people would buy them. As for embargoed theses, my impression is that usually the author wants to get a patent on something discussed in the thesis. In US law, you can only get a patent within a 1 year after publicly disclosing the invention. So the embargo gives them more time. There likely are other reasons as well, but this is the only one I've encountered.
  - gwern 8y ago
    > I don't see any clear reason why they would not other than snobbery. Snobbery is a pretty good reason for anything, I've found. In any case, it could be many things: expense (as my university regularly reminded us, each ILL cost like $20 on net), low demand from patrons (even if self-fulfilling, still a valid reason), lack of trust, not being plugged into the right ILL system/software... I don't recall any of the books I ILLed from my public library being indicated as being from universities, though there were several close to us. I suppose I should try my public library when I have some spare time. I'm almost certain they'd be unable to get either books or theses or papers, but it'd be interesting to know the specific reason why not. > There are many paid document delivery services. Here's my university's one: Yes, actually, I know someone who used that one last month. (Scan quality could've been much better, IMO.) It is, unfortunately, rare to have a straightforward 'pay us $X and we'll give you a copy of any thesis' service linked or mentioned on the library website, and they are only for that library's holdings ("scans of book chapters and articles from the UT Libraries collection" ie not anyone else's). I would complain a lot less if most universities had it! I've sometimes wondered if more university libraries have it than I think they do, and they just hide it. > As for embargoed theses, my impression is that usually the author wants to get a patent on something discussed in the thesis. That would be reasonable, but in the subjects I usually research, that would make little sense. I think the last embargoed student thesis I ran into was a study on the stimulant effect of nicotine on cognitive performance; hard to see any patent on that being possible, much less profitable to apply to.

copperx 8y ago

Regarding the hopeless comment: if the author is still alive the easiest way to get a copy is, well, by emailing the author. Unless the author is a hotshot, they should be able to procure an electronic copy, even if it's was done in pre-word processing times. Most authors would be flattered, not inconvenienced.