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Theses Information: Digital Theses Collections

This guide provides information on finding UCD and other theses.

EThOS

EThOS

The British Library's EThOS service offers:

  • Bibliographic details of over 400,000 British doctoral theses.
  • Free access to thousands of full-text doctoral theses stored electronically at the British Library as well as other theses harvested from university repositories around the UK.
  • Where digital versions do not exist readers can request digitisation which, in most cases, is free of charge. 
  • If you want a UK thesis which isn't listed in ETHOS, you can submit a request - click on the link beneath the search box.

Search tip: To limit your search to full-text theses only, tick the option “Limit search to items available for immediate download” immediately beneath the search box.

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations

NDLTD

 

The NDLTD union catalogue offers links to;

  • Over one million full-text electronic theses from over 190 universities.
  • Largely North American coverage but also includes Australian and European content.
  • Records are harvested from institutional repositories
  • Includes some minor dissertations.

Search tip: Select the Find ETDs option on homepage. Two search tools are offered by NDLTD. Try the SCIRUS ETD Search option to source electronic theses in the sciences.

Theses Canada Portal

Canada Portal

The Theses Canada portal is produced by the National Library of Canada.

  • Provides bibliographic details of doctoral and master's theses submitted to over fifty-five Canadian Universities.
  • Coverage 1965 to present. 
  • Provides access to full-text electronic theses submitted to the Theses Canada programme from 1988 onwards. 
  • Updated bi-annually.

Search tip: Start your search by selecting the “Electronic Theses” option in the Advanced Search page

RIAN

RIAN

 

Ireland’s national research portal holds hundreds of full-text doctoral and master theses from Irish universities and DIT

Search tip: To source theses, select the “Publication Type” option in either the Browse facility or Advanced Search.

E-theses content on RIAN is expected to increase as participating institutes add content to respective repositories.

DART - Europe E-theses portal

DART

The DART-Europe portal offers:

  • Free access to over 215,000 full-text research theses from over 300 European universities. 
  • Includes significant German content. 
  • DART-Europe is a pilot service. Some features, especially search/browse by language and institution are still under development.

PQDT Open

PQDT Open

PQDT Open provides full text open-access dissertations and theses free of charge. It is primarily North American in content.  Limited search capacity when compared to commercial PQDT service (listed in previous section).