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UMI ProQuest  Digital Dissertations: A Progress Report

Since 1938, UMI has been providing the academic community with dissertation archiving, reference and on- demand copy services. UMI captures North American doctoral scholarship in its entirety. With coverage that extends back to 1861, the UMI Dissertation Abstracts database now contains over 1.5 million citations. Over one million full text titles are available in paper, microfilm or microfiche formats. Adding over 55,000 titles annually, every degree granting institution in the United States and Canada is represented in UMI’s Dissertation Abstracts database and microform archive.

ProQuest  Digital Dissertations is a major new program that opens UMI’s archive of dissertations to the scholarly community by providing World Wide Web access to both the Dissertation Abstracts database and the full text of all new dissertations submitted to UMI.

Visit  ProQuest  Digital Dissertations at   http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/   to preview the new services offered. There you will find:

• The most current two years of the Dissertation Abstracts database, over 100,000 citations and abstracts, freely available for searching.
  • Boolean operators, keyword and field searching are all supported.
  • On-line ordering of an electronic or paper copy is available through a link to UMI's Dissertation Express.
  • A library subscription option to the entire database, all 1.5 million citations, also is available.
• The full text of over 95,000 dissertations is available now at this Web site. Dissertations are available in two formats: Full PDF and TIFF images wrapped in PDF.
  • Those institutions that submit dissertations electronically will see their documents in full PDF; those that submit in paper will see their documents in TIFF images.
  • A library subscription option to the entire full text collection of new dissertation titles also is available.

In addition to World Wide Web access to the Dissertation Abstracts database and on-line access to the full text of new dissertations, ProQuest  Digital Dissertations offers the following services at no charge to the library or graduate school:

• Each institution publishing with UMI will receive free campus-wide online access to the full text (in PDF format) of dissertations and theses submitted by that institution.
  • Full text files can be downloaded to any IP address within the institution.
• Free twenty-four page previews of dissertations and theses submitted from 1997 forward.
  • Linked to Dissertation Abstracts on the Web, these PDF preview files will be available for downloading and viewing.
• UMI will provide each participating institution with a unique Web URL that links a listing of citations, abstracts and twenty-four page previews of current dissertations and theses submitted by that institution.
  • Current Research @  will be updated monthly, providing each graduate institution with a Web presence that showcases graduate research.
  • Please see:   http://wwwlib.umi.com/cresearch/main/
• Free MARC records of dissertations and theses submitted for publication returned to source institutions
• Dissertation Defense Bulletin Board
  • A Web based bulletin board that announces upcoming dissertation defenses will provide an announcement of recent research to scholars with similar interests and the opportunity for those about to graduate to reach prospective employers.

UMI's goal is to provide a single source for your current and future dissertation publishing needs.

• Economical publishing support
• Easy bibliographic and full text access
• Affordable copy distribution in all formats
• Value added services benefiting graduate institutions and individual authors
• Permanent digital and microform archiving

webmgr@cni.org