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Theses and dissertations

A dissertation (also called thesis or disquisition) is a document that presents the author's research and findings and is submitted in support of candidature for a degree or professional qualification. Theses have been published at Virginia Tech since 1903. Theses and dissertations have been submitted electronically since 1996, with most of these freely available online. The Virginia Tech Libraries owns few theses or dissertations published at other colleges and universities; expect to obtain most of these documents via interlibrary loan. In addition to the search tools referenced below, most subject specific databases (like PsycInfo, Sociological Abstracts, and ChemAbstracts) will provide citations for theses and dissertations in their covered fields.

Electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs)

This site houses Virginia Tech's online theses and dissertations. Most ETDs are available as PDF and require Acrobat Reader for viewing.

You can search the full text of all Virginia Tech theses and dissertations submitted online since 1997 or browse by author or department. Note: Many ETDs are restricted to VT-only access. Some older dissertations and thesis that were physically submitted have been scanned and added to this database. Most of these scanned documents are restricted to VT-only access.

Search VT electronic theses and dissertations

You can also search for any Virginia Tech theses or dissertation by using the library catalog, Addison. This is particularly helpful in locating the library's bound theses and dissertations (i.e., pre-1997) that have not yet been transferred to electronic format. All pre-1997 theses and dissertations are being scanned for online access as they circulate.

Search Addison for theses and dissertations

<a href="http://addison.vt.edu/screens/theses.html">Theses or dissertation search</a>

ProQuest's Dissertations & Theses - Virginia Tech

Citations and abstracts of Virginia Tech students' dissertations and theses, as well as the full text in PDF format, when available. Available from ProQuest's UMI Dissertation Publishing. In addition to citations and abstracts, the service provides free access to 24 page previews and the full text in PDF format, when available. In most cases, this will be graduate works published from 1997 forward.

Dissertation Abstracts Online

This database includes over 2 million records for dissertations and theses from the United States, Canada, Britain and other European countries. Abstracts are available since 1980 for most dissertations, and since 1988 for most theses. The database includes dissertations and theses dating back to 1861. No full text is available from this database; to obtain most dissertations and theses, you will need to submit an Interlibrary Loan request to ILLiad. Be sure to use the Request a Thesis/Dissertation form; if you use the Request an Article form, you will likely only receive the abstract/summary.

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations

The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations Union Catalog is intended to serve as a repository of rich graduate educational material contributed by a number of member institutions worldwide, with the hope that this project will increase the availability of student research for scholars. Most of the included theses and dissertations are available full-text online.

WorldCat Dissertations and Theses

All dissertations, theses, and published material based on theses and dissertations cataloged by OCLC member libraries.

International theses and dissertations

Theses and dissertations published outside the United States will be more difficult to obtain. Interlibrary Loan will not borrow from libraries outside North America. Recently published documents may be available online. Use these tools to search for international theses and dissertations:

Center for Research Libraries: The Center for Research Libraries holds more than 800,000 doctoral dissertations from universities outside of the U.S. and Canada. The collection was built by deposits from member libraries and current exchange or depository arrangements with almost 100 universities. Interlibrary loan can borrow from CLR; CRL will also attempt to purchase dissertations not in their collection from foreign institutions. Be aware that purchasing dissertations takes time.
Theses Canada Portal: Allows searing of AMICUS, Canada's national online catalogue, for bibliographic records of all theses in Library and Archives Canada's theses collection, which was established in 1965 and access to and search of the full text electronic versions of numerous Canadian theses and dissertations.
Canadian Association of Research Libraries Institutional Repository Search Service: Searches institutional repositories that can include theses and dissertations from the colleges and universities that participate.
Australian Digital Thesis Project (ADT): ADT is a national collaborative distributed database of digitised PhD and Masters theses produced at Australian Universities.
SUDOC: An online catalog to holdings at French academic libraries, SUDOC covers theses completed in France since 1972 (for Humanities and Social Sciences). Can be searched by author, title, and abstract, but since this is a comprehensive catalog to resources at French academic libraries, limit your search to theses by clicking on Options on the right hand corner of the page and limiting your search to Theses. Click on Appliquerto save your selection and proceed with the search.
Serveur de Thèses Multidisciplinaire / Multidisciplinary Theses Server: Still limited in content, but provides access to the full text of mostly French dissertations.

Purchase dissertations through Dissertation Express

If you need to obtain a thesis or dissertation from an institution that will not lend through interlibrary loan, you can purchase an unbound copy from ProQuest's Dissertation Express using a credit card or by faxing payment information. Look up theses or dissertations by title, author, or UMI publication number. Orders are shipped directly to you. Since you will bear the cost of this order, verify using the tools listed above that the document is not otherwise available to you free before ordering.

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