Electronic Theses and Dissertations The Promise and Problem of Library Repositories David F. Kohl Dean and University Librarian, Emeritus IATUL Conference June 3, 2003 Ankara, Turkey

Doing it yourself! You do need to be careful!

Doing it yourself Sometimes you lack expertise!

But…doing it yourself can work with… Reasonable forethought Normal caution Help and advice from friends

Digitizing and Web Mounting Theses and Dissertations – The Plan  The problem  The traditional approach to theses and dissertations  The new model  Five lessons to date

The Problem  Scholars create information at great cost in time, money and effort –Give it away –Buy it back at (sometimes) considerable cost  The problem is not evil, immoral publishers –Whether commercial, society, or association  But, does this arrangement work in the best interests of the academy and the furthering of scholarship?

Visibility and access to theses and dissertations traditionally  Cataloging and archiving in the library –Not very visible  In a print world you had to check each institution’s card catalog –Not very accessible  In a print world you had to visit the library or use ILL  Placing t/d with UMI/ProQuest –One stop shopping –Cost to both information provider and seeker

UMI/ProQuest Costs  Information Provider (Student) –$75.00 microfilming –$45.00 register copyright – ? shipping costs  Information Seeker (Customer) –$32.00 online order, unbound paper copy –$37.00 microfilm copy –$41.00 paper copy (soft cover) –$50.00 paper copy (hard cover)

New Model  Pioneered at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA) –Project developed in the mid-1990s –First ETDs available in 1996; official beginning January 1, 1997  Concept – ETD is loaded on a server in PDF format – Available by URL from library catalog or other search engine  Principles – The ETD is available for free – Increasing levels of “one stop shopping” (local- consortial-international)

Lessons Learned When information is… Visible! Free! Easily accessible!

First lesson: Increased Use  Virginia Tech –In with a collection of 3,393 ETDs –578,152 downloads –170.4 requests per ETD annually –Most popular dissertation received 9,920 downloads that year  OhioLINK –In calander year 2002 with an average collection of 425 full ETDs –24,071 downloads –56.6 requests per ETD annually –In 2003 the number of downloads has increased 50.1% in the first 4 months

Comparison to Print Circulation  At Virginia Tech –In ,747 dissertations were added to the collection –By February, 1996 they had received 6,169 circulations –Average annual circulation rate of 0.326/dissertation  At OhioLINK –In 2001 average circulation rate in the 5 ARL libraries of bound volumes ranged from 0.06/item to 0.34/item –Composite average circulation rate was 0.20

A Radical Shift in Use  Virginia Tech –From circulations per dissertation annually –To “circulations” per ETD annually –An increase of 852 times!  OhioLINK –From 0.20 circulations per bound volume annually –To 56.6 “circulations” per ETD annually –An increase of 283 times!

Breadth of Use Has Also Increased Non US OhioLINK downloads in 2003 # Foreign countries Range of downloads Turkey Month January February March April

Most Active Foreign Users in 2003 MonthHighestSecond highest January February March April United Kingdom Mexico United Kingdom Singapore United Kingdom Bulgaria Indonesia

Second Lesson: Digital Expands the Format  Scholarship does not proceed by text alone  Additional formats presently in use in VTech (and many OL) ETDs: –Out of 2,873 ETDs investigated there were 9,975 separate multimedia files used  Still images (bmp, dxf, gif, jpg, tiff)  Video (avi, mov, mpg, qu)  Audio (aiff, wav)  Other (macromedia, SGML, XML)

Third Lesson: More than Academic Interest Commercial Site Downloads, OhioLINK 2003 MonthDownloadsTotal Minus ? Commercial % of Total Raw Total January February March April 462 1, ,489 2,415 1,923 2, ,384 3,107 2,631 2,748 Overall, on average, commercial sites download an average of 36.0% of the ETDs

A Chance to Grab Treasure in Difficult Times?

Fourth Lesson: Doing Good is Cheap  Virginia Tech report on costs to set up* –$24,000Staff –$36,000Equipment –$15,000Software –$65,000Total * Based on 1998 prices For cost details, see:

Fifth Lesson: ETDs Raise Questions About Academic Values and Priorities  The Problem –Withholding the ETD from public view temporarily or permanately –Theses and dissertations are inherently public documents  Scholarship proceeds by: –Open debate and discussion –Testing assertions –Checking citations –Replicating experiments

The Dreary Reality  Virginia Tech –3,786 ETDs were approved by the Graduate School from –1,988 (52.5%) had unrestricted access –1,107 (29.2%) had various forms of restricted access (restricted for different time periods) –691 (18.3%) were withheld from all access

It’s a Trend!  OhioLINK –1,831 ETDs as of May 23, 2003 –1,149 (62%) had full text (i.e. unrestricted access) –682 (38%) had abstracts only (i.e. restricted access)

Two OhioLINK Philosophies Operating  7 of 8 full text or nothing; 1 abstract or full text required SchoolTotal ETDs Full Text ETDs % Full Text Case Western Reserve Cedarville Miami Ohio Ohio State U. of Cincinnati Wright State Youngstown State ,

Why Restrict?  Military security  Commercial exploitation –Patent on a process or product –Not copyright (student always retains copyright)  ETD may count as prior publication –Some journals, e.g. Science count an ETD as a prior publication and will not accept an article based on thesis/dissertation research if available as an ETD

It’s the Way to Go!