EThOS
As I mentioned last week, EThOS is now open to the public. This is the British Library’s new online service for delivering copies of UK PhD theses, replacing the old British Thesis Service which used to supply copies on paper or microfilm. Although the site is officially in beta most features seem to be fully working. Right now there’s only a basic search (you can’t limit your search to specific fields) but it accepts wildcards and should be enough to find what you want if you know what you’re looking for. Searches can be limited to theses which are available for immediate download.
Theses are being digitized on demand. If someone has already requested and received a copy of a thesis then it will be available immediately for anyone else who wants it. There is no charge for downloading a thesis which has already been digitized, but you have to pay the cost of printing and binding if you prefer a hard copy. The publicity last year suggested that the first person to request a thesis would have to pay the costs of digitization, but now it looks like this will rarely happen because many university libraries have agreed to pay for digitization of their own theses as part of their commitment to open access. Once a new thesis has been requested digitization is promised in 10 working days although a notice on the site says there might be delays because of heavy demand. I ordered an undigitized thesis today (D. E. Lewis on the parliamentarian ordnance office – something I would have read during my PhD if I’d known about it), so we’ll see how long it takes.
Searching for “english civil war” limited to theses already available I got a couple of hits (there are lots more for “first world war”) and downloaded David Evans’s thesis on Edward Massey. I found it slightly annoying that I had to go through a checkout process even though the download was free, but it’s still an awful lot more convenient than paying around £50 and waiting several weeks the last time I ordered a thesis. The digital file is a PDF but it comes inside a zip file. That seemed slightly pointless as it didn’t make the download significantly smaller (12MB zipped, 14MB unzipped) and means that you can’t view the thesis straight away in your browser. It might make sense if multiple orders were combined in the same zip file, but even if you have more than one thesis in your basket you still have to download and unzip each one separately.
It looks like most UK universities are participating in the scheme, but significantly Oxford and Cambridge aren’t. Although their theses show up in the search results they can’t be ordered through the site. This might just result in fewer people bothering to read and cite theses from the big two, so it could be their loss as much as anyone else’s.
Overall I’m really impressed with this site. There are some minor things that could be improved, and it crashes occasionally, but it’s obviously going to be a very useful resource. I’m particularly pleased that in most cases users won’t have to pay for theses. I hope this will encourage people to be more adventurous about which theses they consult.
Comment by Ross Mahoney — 3:48 pm, 9 March 2009 [permanent link to this comment]
Gavin – Cheers for posting this. I have already downloaded a few to read. I think they need to improve the searchability of the site. They need to link thesis more readily with keyword searches rather than just title words. At the moment I am having to be creative with word searches. It will build with time and it is nice to finally have the service availiable.
BTW Great to see you back on the blogosphere;)
Comment by Nick — 5:45 pm, 9 March 2009 [permanent link to this comment]
I’ve been really impressed with EThOS so far. I’ve ordered half a dozen or so theses to be scanned, and have downloaded about the same number that have already been digitised. The speed and quality of the service is good: like you I think the downloading interface is a bit clunky, with lots of screens and clicking back and forth if you’ve downloaded more than one, but this is a minor niggle.
I’m also really disappointed that Oxford and Cambridge are not engaging in this service yet. I’ve had a really dire service from inter-library loans on Oxbridge theses so far – I was told I couldn’t be loaned one because they did not have the author’s consent to make it available. I replied that he was dead, so it would be hard for him to give consent. I still wasn’t allowed to get a copy – my only option is to go to the Bodleian and consult it. As you say it is Oxbridge’s loss since it means that theses which remain unpublished will almost certainly go unconsulted by scholars outside the UK, or even outside Oxbridge.
Comment by Gavin Robinson — 10:56 am, 12 March 2009 [permanent link to this comment]
Keywords would be really useful. As I suggested above, it seems to work best if you already know what you’re looking for, but that misses a lot of opportunities. It would be better if it was easier to find things that you don’t know you’re looking for – that’s one of the great advantages of web based research.
I also forgot to mention before that the records aren’t Zotero-able. It would be great if they added COiNS metadata or something like that. Again it’s currently fine if you already have the data in Zotero and are looking for a copy of that specific thesis, but if it’s something new you have to enter it manually or scrape it from somewhere else.
I remember Oxbridge theses were harder to get from the British Thesis Service – you had to fill in an extra form and send it by post because they needed an original signature – but at least you could get them. I’m assuming Oxbridge have or will have their own online repositories for theses, but that’s still less convenient than having all British theses in the same place.
Pingback by Airminded · There were giants in the earth in those days — 10:28 am, 31 March 2009 [permanent link to this comment]
[...] I followed Gavin Robinson’s lead and tried out the British Library’s EThOS beta. EThOS stands for Electronic Theses [...]
Comment by Gavin Robinson — 4:39 pm, 29 April 2009 [permanent link to this comment]
And the thesis I ordered to be digitized was finally delivered today. A bit longer than I was expecting, but they’ve had to increase the lead times because of heavy demand. Still not bad for nothing money.
Comment by Gavin Robinson — 4:24 pm, 23 June 2009 [permanent link to this comment]
I’ve just noticed that my thesis is now available for immediate download, which means that someone else must have requested it. Scary. I really want to make my own annotated version so I can indicate where I was wrong or changed my mind about things, but that would take ages and maybe there’s no point living in the past (says a historian).