Laval & all:
yes I did ask the question to all , and in follow up to the one posted
previously to the list by Dr Ann O'Neill about a complete list of the
ALISE Garfield Dissertation Awards past winners, to which Dr Toni
Carbo provided us with that link with all the awarded dissertations
since this award began.
I also referred to in my previous post below, a bibliography that was
called American Library History : a bibliography of dissertations and
theses that was compiled for many years by Dr Arthur P. Young.
"ALISE (Association for Library and Information Science Education) is
a non-profit organization that serves as the intellectual home of
university faculty in graduate programs in library and information
science in North America. Its mission is to promote excellence in
research, teaching, and service and to provide an understanding of the
values and ethos of library and information science. ALISE serves 500
individual members and more than 60 institutional members, primarily
in the United States and Canada."
In terms of my own personal question in asking about "nationally" was
a comprehensive and UPDATED list readily available?, yes--I meant in
the United States since I am in Pittsburgh PA, my question was about
LIS programs in the United States. For this question, yes I am only
interested in a list of completed, updated dissertations in all
programs in the United States.
In the United States also, dissertations are not treated as "grey
literature" by any means, and are "normal routine publications" which
libraries and catalogers deal with every day. They are however,
considered original research publications and take a bit longer to
catalog, even if a PhD candidate supplies their own "keywords" to add
on to promote themselves!, catalogers still need to treat these works,
as well as the ETD formats you mentioned also as original cataloging
to be done. It is not "shelf ready" even with a digital format.
They are also available through Proquest Dissertations & Theses
(think previously UMI microfilm everyone) which yes is also a pretty
standard requirement in most if not all university PhD programs in the
U.S. that it be submitted in digital format.
This has posed some issues, ok challenges in American libraries also
for different reasons with this vendor, and in terms of copyright,
ownership rights etc and a PhD students rights to make it available as
open access or not. Not all PhDs want their dissertation available
even if its available thru Proquest. So to also answer your questions,
I am aware of ETDs and have also cataloged them as part of my work
with electronic resources.
Also, we can ask further who has access if they do not have
subscriptions to Proquest but it may be or maybe not available through
a university digital repository, which often will be in a different
collection online than from a university's traditional online catalog.
Many programs list recent dissertations on their school website, but
this too is often hit or miss and is not always kept up to date. Some
are better at keeping this updated than others.
I remember seeing many older dissertations in a local university
catalog from dissertations from the 1970s that were still in microfilm
or print and sitting off in a storage area still with something like
"in processing" listed in the online catalog. That doesn't say very
much to me or to a user interested. Sure now we can all log on to
Proquest or hope to find it via the ETDs, but again , this often does
not happen "automatically" or as quickly as one would imagine.
Such important topics should not be "hidden" away does an average
user just browsing recent dissertations at a school know about where
to find this? do they know when they reach a university library
website where to look for a dissertation? or do they give up in sheer
frustration which may be what some would prefer?
We need to be making it easier for ourselves to find such information
and especially for our users and prospective graduate students , not
just at times of accreditation and visits from reviewers. Show us the
outcomes, let's get this information out there and promote schools and
faculty and student research. This should be a no brainer.
Also thank you to those who contacted me off list with suggestions.
Have a good weekend all,
Karen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karen Weaver, MLS
Electronic Resources Statistician
Collection Management
Duquesne University, Gumberg Library
Pittsburgh PA email: [log in to unmask]
Gmail: [log in to unmask]
Twitter: @ka_weaver
Member, ALA COSWL Committee on the Status of Women in Librarianship
Follow Us on Facebook
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On 7/16/11, Laval Hunsucker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Karen,
>
> You *did* present this as a "question to all" :-).
>
> What do you mean by "national dissertations" ?? Are you
> only concerned with the U.S.A. ( and Canada ? ) ?
>
> In some countries ( where the output is in any case [ much ]
> lower than in North America ), lists *are* made and published.
> Furthermore, in some countries dissertations are treated as
> ( more or less ) normal publications rather than as grey
> literature. This fact in itself makes it easier to create for
> oneself an ad hoc overview, if one is familiar enough with
> the national bibliographical apparatus in question, and/or
> how to search effectively e.g. the online union catalogue.
> Additionally, nowadays many universities maintain the
> requirement that all doctoral dissertations ( and sometimes
> also master's theses ) must be submitted to the respective
> institutional digital repositories. These are ( often ) easily
> searchable on the criteria you have in mind -- either
> individually per university, or sometimes collectively via a
> national system.
>
>
> - Laval Hunsucker
> Breukelen, Nederland
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Karen Weaver <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Cc:
>> Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 5:21 PM
>> Subject: Re: List of ALISE Garfield dissertation awards
>>
>> A related question to all :
>>
>> Is there a way to know how many national dissertations are completed
>> in LIS on an annual basis ? Other than checking Proquest
>> Dissertations & Abstracts by school etc ? and by specializations also?
>> This question may have been asked previously, just wondering about
>> this in terms of ALISE -is this something that is also maintained
>> somewhere still?
>>
>> I know that Arthur Young used to maintain a bibliography of
>> dissertations & theses
>> The last edition I have is from 1988 the 3rd revised edition: there
>> may be others more recent-?
>>
>> American Library History: A Bibliography of Dissertations & Theses
>> Arthur P. Young ISBN 0810821389
>> "This third revised edition is based on Michael H. Harris' A Guide to
>> Research in American Library History (Scarecrow, 1968; 2d edition,
>> 1974)
>>
>> Thank you,
>> Karen
>>
>
>
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