DAEDALUS: Facing the Challengesof eTheses at Glasgow

William J NixonProject Manager: Service Development (DAEDALUS)

ETD 2003. Berlin, May 2003

University of Glasgow

• Founded in 1451• 2nd oldest

University in Scotland

• 4th oldest in Britain• 19,500 full-time

students studying in ten faculties.

• Over 5,500 staff

Mission

• to provide education through the development of learning in a research environment

• to undertake fundamental, strategic and applied research

• to sustain and add value to Scottish culture, to the natural environment and to the national economy.

Theses at Glasgow

• 13,000 Doctoral Theses held

• Oldest Thesis is “Dyspepsia” from 1838

• 370 Theses added per year

• Theses available for consultation in Special Collections

FAIR Programme

• Call released in January 2002• Inspired by the vision of the Open

Archives Initiative (OAI)• 14 Projects and 3 Clusters• E-Theses Projects

– E-Theses at The Robert Gordon University– Theses Alive! Led by The University of

Edinburgh

DAEDALUS

• Funded by JISC FAIR Programme until July 2005 (Begun Aug 02)

• Building institutional repositories at Glasgow

• Core strategic aim for the Library

• Two strands– Advocacy– Service Development

Range of Repositories

• Published and peer-reviewed papers• Pre-prints, grey literature, technical reports,

working papers• Theses• Research Finding Aids• Administrative Documents• Other objects: images, sound files, film clips• Search service

Advocacy – Avoiding ESpace

• to create an Open Access culture• to gather content for the range of Open

Archives services• to provide advice on policy implications,

guidelines and processes of the services

• to formulate an exit strategy that ensures a full and fully used service

Range of Software

• GNU Eprints (Southampton)

• DSpace (MIT & H-P)

• ETD-db (Virginia Tech)

• ARC Search Software (Old Dominion)

ePrints at Glasgow

ETDs

• Virginia Tech software: ETD-db• Complementary and voluntary submission

process at Glasgow• http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ETD-db/• Demonstrator in February 2003• Not yet implemented OAI-compliance

Depositing Theses

• Senate Regulations: Two bound printed copies

• No e-requirements• British Standard 4821:90 (now withdrawn)• Theses are forwarded from the relevant

Faculty offices to the Library• Catalogued to MARC 21 and assigned

Library of Congress Subject Heading• One copy is held in SCD, the other at Store

Multimedia

• Non-print material such as CD-ROM’s, discs, tapes, and programs are occasionally submitted with the thesis

• These are stored with the thesis in pockets at the back

• Currently no attempt made to ensure any compatibility, or long term access to these materials.

• Digital Preservation and future access will increasingly become an issue

Access to Theses

• Theses may be consulted in Special Collections

• The Library keeps a record of those who consult theses.

• They may also be photocopied by SCD staff• In 2000-01 there were 1,548 requests for

theses in Special Collections• These requests represent only 6% of the total

number of requests for their material.

Borrowing Theses

• Glasgow does not lend its theses• Theses may only be borrowed or purchased

via the British Library • The British Library keeps a record of who

requests theses• From 1999 to date, the British Library have

added approximately 470 titles from Glasgow• Only 15 of these have been requested more

that once.

E-Theses on Campus

• Range of provision– Titles– Abstracts– Full text in postscript

First Steps with ETD’s

• Discussions with various Faculty and Research Committees

• Strong Faculty support (Vet and Education)• Demonstrator service implemented for initial

content• Mix of Doctoral and Masters Theses• Approaching those staff with publicly

available theses

Issues which we face

• Cultural– Encouraging deposit– Barriers to use and deposit

• Organisational– Intellectual Property Rights– Plagiarism

• Technical– Metadata Standards – File formats

Range of Metadata Issues

• Subject schemas

• Controlled vocabulary

• Digital Rights

• Digital preservation

Assistance for Students

• Focus for publisher copyright policies

• Range of repositories

• Mediated submission service– File conversion– Record enhancement

The Future

• 265 Theses available by July 2005• “Proof of Concept”• Move, ultimately to a single bound copy

deposited in the library• E-Theses deposits become the norm

rather than the exception• 2003 – a watershed year for ETD’s in

the UK

DAEDALUS – Freeing Theses at the University of Glasgow

http://www.gla.ac.uk/daedalus

DAEDALUS