Columbus, Ohio – The OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertation (ETD) Center database is about to get a major influx of content to further benefit students, faculty and researchers.
On September 7, the ETD Center added a new capability called Retrospective Batch Upload, in which OhioLINK member libraries and graduate schools can upload older theses and dissertations in bulk. Previously, ETDs could be uploaded on an individual basis only.
This new feature allows the member libraries and graduate schools to add digital versions of older paper-based theses and dissertations to the Center, and expand access to them beyond the hard copies that are currently in a campus library or archive.
“This will significantly increase the availability and ease of use of research from Ohio’s graduate programs,” said Gwen Evans, executive director of OhioLINK. “Some libraries and graduate programs already had digitized paper dissertations, but nowhere accessible to host them; and now other institutions can embark on their own mass digitization programs. We’re looking forward to the first batch of historical dissertations from Ohio State University Libraries very shortly. All dissertations in the ETD are open access, so this will benefit researchers worldwide.”
The ETD Center is an open-access website that makes Ohio’s original research available to anyone on the web. The Center currently contains more than 59,000 theses and dissertations from students at 31 of Ohio’s world-renowned academic institutions. The ETDs are included in Google Scholar, increasing visibility and expanding the reach of Ohio’s academic output.
“Theses and dissertations deposited by Ohio State University graduate students convey the rich, nearly 150-year legacy of student research conducted at the university,” said Damon Jaggars, vice provost and director of libraries for University Libraries. “The ETD Center’s new Retrospective Batch Upload feature will help make an additional 50,000 recently digitized retrospective theses and dissertations openly available through the ETD Center, aiding Ohio State in realizing its goal to eventually make all theses and dissertations ever deposited at OSU publicly available.”
The Ohio State University plans to start using the new feature immediately by uploading this large collection of digitized theses, with some going back to around the early 1900s. Other Ohio schools are in various stages of digitizing their paper ETDs.
In 2015, visitors from 212 countries downloaded 9,475,581 theses and dissertations.
Established in 1992, the Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK) is Ohio’s statewide academic library consortium and serves more than 600,000 end users. A member of the Ohio Technology Consortium of the Ohio Department of Higher Education, OhioLINK provides a competitive advantage for Ohio’s higher education community by cooperatively and cost-effectively acquiring, providing access to and preserving an expanding array of print and digital resources, and by centrally hosting digital content. Together, OhioLINK and its member libraries provide users access to nearly 50 million books and other library materials, more than 100 electronic research databases, more than 81,000 e-books, thousands of images and videos, and millions of electronic journal articles. www.ohiolink.edu.
Jamie Abel, Communications Director
Ohio Technology Consortium
Office: 614-292-6495
Email: jabel@oh-tech.org
