I heard from a few people who are starting discussions about digital master's thesis and how to provide access, and are interested in knowing what other institutions are doing. I was asked to summarize the responses I received, so here goes. I hope I'm not misunderstanding or misrepresenting anything!
UMI appears to be the distributor of choice for digital theses, but some institutions also either already provide the content through open access or are thinking of doing so.
It also appears that copyright permissions is a prerequisite.
Purdue requires that a thesis meet the requirements of the graduate school guidelines, including copyright clearance, before the thesis can be made available online outside the institution via UMI. For those graduate papers that don't meet the graduate requirements, including copyright clearance, the institution allows in house online access only, with links to the grad papers posted on an unpublished site. To find out more about how various theses and dissertations are handled: http://www.lib.purdue.edu/access/ill/td/
University of Pittsburgh fine arts library is currently thinking about digital theses, but has no decision yet. The institution does have PhD dissertations mounted in the University Library System Digital system called D-Scribe: http://www.library.pitt.edu/dscribe/ .
Simon Fraser University has their theses online, and searchable both via the library catalog and at the actual digital collection: http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/handle/1892/112 . Canada has "fair dealing" copyright, which is not exactly the same as "fair use." At SFU, students are required to find out about copyright and seek permissions on their own, but they are given advice how to ask for permissions, including how to make the request in a respectful, collegial, friendly manner, and how to word the request so that it doesn't frighten the copyright holder. Although it is rare to encounter immoveable refusals, if that happens, then the librarian will help with the final negotiations.
University of California San Diego allows students the option of submitting digital theses, but the institution has not yet set this up for MFAs. Image, sound, and moving image files can be uploaded at the time of submission as zip files. Digital theses are accessible via UMI. Electronic submission is not required, and embargos ranging from 6 months to 2 years are allowed, with a release date. There is discussion of a future time when digital dissertations and theses will be open access.
University of Arizona
http://etd.library.arizona.edu/etd/
Hope this is helpful.
--Peggy
-----Original Message-----
From: ART LIBRARIES SOCIETY DISCUSSION LIST [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peggy Keeran
Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 6:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ARLIS-L] Art masters theses online?
Hi, all,
Is your library (or institution) digitizing art and art history masters theses and making them freely available online? If so, how do you deal with issues concerning copyright of images? Do you catalog the titles and make access available via the library catalog, or do you have a digital collection? If the latter, what is the URL for the collection?
If you have decided against making these freely available, why did you, or your institution, reach that decision?
Please respond to me off list.
Thank you for any help you can give.
Peggy Keeran
Penrose Library
University of Denver
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