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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 t

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.
- btrettel 8y ago
  I'd push back if a public library refused to do ILL. (Though I can be fairly stubborn.) If cost is a concern, offer to pay. If a librarian says that they don't offer that service due to low demand, ask if they could make an exception. Maybe ask another librarian who might be more open to the idea. I don't know what to do about a lack of trust. Lacking the right software is not a valid excuse. UT will send "ALA requests" every once in a while if the lending library isn't in their software. As far as I can tell an ALA request is just this form mailed or emailed: http://www.ala.org/rusa/sites/ala.org.rusa/files/content/sections/stars/resources/ALA_ILL_Request_Form.pdf http://www.ala.org/rusa/sites/ala.org.rusa/files/content/sec... I might suggest contacting various universities about getting copies of theses from them. It's possible that they'd be perfectly willing to scan them for you, even for free. On this note, I've been surprised by the extent some corporations have gone to provide me with copies of proprietary technical reports they produced. One time I called the number on the website of a large corporation and my call was forwarded to their staff librarian, as I recall. A few weeks later I got the requested report. It had to go through some release process, but they were happy to share their work. Another time I emailed a generic address at a Shell research lab, and a few weeks later I got a copy of the report I wanted. There have been failures as well, but I was surprised by how frequent the successes were.

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.

btrettel 8y ago
I'd push back if a public library refused to do ILL. (Though I can be fairly stubborn.) If cost is a concern, offer to pay. If a librarian says that they don't offer that service due to low demand, ask if they could make an exception. Maybe ask another librarian who might be more open to the idea. I don't know what to do about a lack of trust. Lacking the right software is not a valid excuse. UT will send "ALA requests" every once in a while if the lending library isn't in their software. As far as I can tell an ALA request is just this form mailed or emailed: http://www.ala.org/rusa/sites/ala.org.rusa/files/content/sections/stars/resources/ALA_ILL_Request_Form.pdf http://www.ala.org/rusa/sites/ala.org.rusa/files/content/sec... I might suggest contacting various universities about getting copies of theses from them. It's possible that they'd be perfectly willing to scan them for you, even for free. On this note, I've been surprised by the extent some corporations have gone to provide me with copies of proprietary technical reports they produced. One time I called the number on the website of a large corporation and my call was forwarded to their staff librarian, as I recall. A few weeks later I got the requested report. It had to go through some release process, but they were happy to share their work. Another time I emailed a generic address at a Shell research lab, and a few weeks later I got a copy of the report I wanted. There have been failures as well, but I was surprised by how frequent the successes were.