UofL - Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Introduction

Since 2002 the University Libraries have been building a collection of color digital copies of theses and dissertations authored here at the University of Louisville. This effort is in keeping with an international trend of institutions migrating to electronic theses and dissertations (known as ETDs) in order to provide free worldwide access to these titles and to enable graduate students to include digital media in their works. Both the University of Louisville's Graduate School and J.B. Speed School of Engineering have incorporated the utilization of digital technologies into their thesis and dissertation guidelines. These documents are available at the Graduate School's Preparation of Theses and Dissertations and the Speed School's Procedures and Standards for Master of Engineering Theses Effective July of 2006 the Speed School's guidelines were amended so that only an electronic copy will be submitted to the Ekstrom Library.

With these changes the writers of electronic theses and dissertations are no longer tied to the limitations of previous technologies and can now add sound and video files to their works. Readers of these studies also benefit from recent improvements by being able to quickly access works over the Web, without charge, and without the documents having suffered the reduction in quality that is inherent in traditional microfilming processes. Several universities have supported digital authorship for a number of years and have acquired a number of works by authors who have creatively embraced these changes. For a few examples of such efforts click here.

While taking advantage of new digital technologies, the Libraries will continue to house and preserve its extensive collection of paper theses. These works can be located through the Libraries' online catalog and used in the Libraries' reading rooms. Additionally, ProQuest's Digital Dissertations' provides indexing to all of the University's theses and dissertations since 1968 and black and white fulltext for those works completed since 1997.

As part of the University of Louisville Libraries' current initiative to acquire electronic copies of graduate students' works as they complete their degrees, the Libraries would like to digitize a portion of its older theses and dissertations. To do this, we ask any graduate of the University of Louisville to provide an electronic copy of his or her thesis or dissertation and to allow us to make it available on the Web. If a student can't provide an electronic copy, signing the form indicated below would give the Libraries permission to create a digital copy from the Libraries' paper copy of their work and present it on the Web. This will provide us with an important opportunity to take advantage of the exciting changes that are taking place in the creation, storage, and retrieval of documents, as well as expand our level of service to the University's students.

In order to be part of this project, the author's acknowledgement of certain conditions is required. The author needs to complete the "Nonexclusive License" (see link below) and mail it to Tyler Goldberg at the address below. Comments and questions should also be forwarded to Professor Goldberg.

Tyler Goldberg
Ekstrom Library
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY 40292
tylergoldberg@louisville.edu

Nonexclusive License