Please find below a message from George Oberle.


Hope everyone has a great week-end.


Cindy




Cynthia A. Kierner

Professor of History

Director, Ph.D. Program in History

George Mason University

Fairfax, Virginia 22030

________________________________
From: George Oberle
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2014 8:56 AM
To: kjohns25; Cynthia A Kierner
Subject: RE: Question from Colloquium regarding theses & dissertations


Hi Cindy and Kirk,Cindy-would you mind passing this information on the Ph.D. Colloquium list and if there are others that might benefit from this information.

Kirk's question at colloquium :
"whether the library has any service for grad students wishing to acquire an unpublished thesis or dissertation. I know that the ILL service at the library system I work for will--if a circulating copy cannot be located--offer to order a patron a copy from ProQuest's dissertation service at a discounted rate* (perhaps because we already have an institutional account with ProQuest?) Just wondered if there is any such service available through the GMU library system."


Answer:
After speaking to our Head of Access Services we determined that there is no real special discount that we can get/give. Without knowing the specific pricing offered at your library I really don't know if the pricing that PQ now offers as a general rule is different from any others. Personally I tried using two different browsers one logged in as a Mason institution affiliate and the other with no affiliation. Both offered me a price of $56 for a softcover print version of a dissertation. See:
http://www.proquest.com/products-services/dissertations/Dissertation-Print-Copies-for-Researchers.html


So I guess the answer is no...but I would be glad to talk more about this issue.



Getting Dissertations:

I would be remiss in my duty as a librarian if I did not point out that we have access to many of these types of sources via a host of sources. Most importantly is Proquest Dissertation and Theses Full-Text<http://mutex.gmu.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/pqdtft?accountid=14541>. I am sure that you are aware of this tool. In PQ Diss.-there are many dissertations produced in the U.S. (but not all) and are published by them in their database available for download and purchase. PQ is going back retrospectively and making many available for download but not all fall into this mix. For example some authors have been able to work with publishers and published their dissertations. For these purchase them like any other book. Many are also available online in Institutional Repositories at local institutions.(see http://thesis.gmu.edu/mars.html)<http://thesis.gmu.edu/mars.html%29> Additionally, a significant number of foreign dissertations are available for ILL from CRL<http://www.crl.edu/> and we can also use their Purchase On Demand<http://www.crl.edu/demand-purchase-program> program to select new ones that are not already in their holdings. This does take some time to accomplish however for a long-term research project it may be useful. The most problematic issues come from those that PQ does not ingest and therefore cannot resell. For those that do not participate in any of these services they require users to consult thesis, honors thesis, dissertations etc. in their special collections. If you are having trouble finding a dissertation/thesis via PQ Dissertation and Thesis also check the WorldCat database and also see the Library and Archives of Canada site. (http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/thesescanada/index-e.html)

I hope this helps a little.

George


George D. Oberle III
History Librarian, Research Services
4400 University Drive MS 2FL
Fairfax, VA 22030
703-993-4175
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