Research Guide for CES Visiting Scholars

This page lists resources for dissertations (general and RLL-related) along with information on electronic dissertations.
In general, Harvard's Interlibrary Loan service cannot obtain dissertations; in many cases you'll need to acquire directly from the institution where the work was submitted. 

To find doctoral dissertations from North American universities and some European institutions, search:

Dissertations and Theses Full Text

This is the largest database with 2.7 million citations for Masters and PhD dissertations. Full text for most dissertations from 1997 on (at this writing, 1.2 million full text dissertations available for download in PDF format). Hosted by ProQuest. Use Harvard's Get It Interlibrary Loan link to request print dissertations.

  Harvard dissertations and theses

---

As above, most of these from 1997 are available via ProQuest.

Havard dissertations and theses since 2012 are also available in our online repository, DASH, and in HOLLIS. If a dissertation from 2012 forward is not available in full text, the author has placed an embargo on it (up to 5 years) and the library won't be able to obtain it, but you may be able to ask the author.

Earlier dissertations, theses and Harvard honors theses are listed in HOLLIS and HOLLIS Classic. For those unavailable in full text, inquire at the Harvard University Archives unless they belong to The Center for Research Libraries see below).

---

Use Harvard's Interlibrary Loan to obtain any theses and dissertations found by searching

Center for Research Libraries Catalog: Dissertations

Request item through Get It (ILL link)

To find print sources, search HOLLIS Classic:
Subject beginning with...
e.g. Dissertations, Academic--France--Bibliography.

dissonline.de
Search for German and Swiss electronic dissertations and "Habilitationen." For dissertations that have not been digitized, search the catalog of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

Gegnir (IS)
Click on "Námsritgerðir" (Icelandic interface) or "Thesis search" (English interface) to limit to dissertations.

HELKA (FI)
Select the Advanced Search and "Väitöskirja/Dissertation or Thesis" from the search box.

Det Kongelige Bibliotek/The Danish Royal Library (DK)
Search on "thesis," "dissertation," or "afhandling" (the latter if you want dissertations in Danish) together with your search terms.

Libris (SE)
Select "Dissertations" under "Type of publication" box to limit your search to dissertations.

Nasjonalbiblioteket (NO)
Select "Post graduate theses" in the search box to limit your search to dissertations.

National Academic Research and Collaborations Information System (NARCIS): Promise of Science  (NL)
The "Promise of Science" provides access to over 21,000 full-text doctoral e-theses from all Dutch universities. It is a subset of NARCIS and DAREnet. Dates of coverage vary, but dissertations are mostly from recent years.

Österreichische Dissertationsdatenbank (AU)
This database references over 55,000 dissertations and theses held at Austrian Universities; select dissertations are available online.

Ongoing research and development in the e-sphere:

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs).

The Guide for Electronic Theses and Dissertations
A wiki maintained by the NDLTD ETD Revision Team. Addresses issues for submission and administration of e-dissertations, whether born-digital or digital versions of print documents.

---

The European Working Group of the NDLTD is the DART-Europe E-theses Portal (DEEP). Intended to be the single European portal for dissertations, DART-Europe is a collaboration of research libraries and library consortia, endorsed by LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche).

---