More than 2 million clicking on WVU electronic theses and dissertations

May 21st, 2002

Move over, Book-of-the-Month Club. The West Virginia University electronic thesis and dissertation collection has been accessed more than 2.1 million times since inception.

Implemented as a requirement in August 1998, the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation

Initiative has several purposes, including helping students promote their careers, assisting learners and researchers within and outside WVU , and making available many scholarly works that were previously inaccessible.

The main program goals that have been successfully achieved are:

  • for graduate students to learn about electronic publishing and digital libraries and to apply that knowledge as they engage in their research and build and submit their own ETDs for distribution on the Web
  • for universities to learn about digital libraries, as they collect, catalog, archive and make ETDs accessible to scholars worldwide
  • for universities to learn how to unlock the potential of their intellectual property and products
  • for graduate education to improve through more effective sharing
  • for timely sharing of technology, knowledge and peer review

Other notable collection statistics include:

  • WVU ETDs are accessed 145,000 times more than their printed counterparts
  • There are more than 1,300 documents in the WVU ETD collection
  • The most popular WVU ETD has been accessed more than 15,000 times since January 2001
  • WVU ETDs are accessed in more than 93 countries
  • Access to the WVU ETD research documents has grown at an exponential rate, making it the most popular collection on and off campus
  • There are a growing number of interesting WVU ETD multimedia submissions
  • More than 70 percent of WVU ETDs are available worldwide on the Web (Note: Campus-restricted ETDs are still available through the Inter-Library Loan program)
  • WVU ETDs are transforming West Virginia’s economy by providing research access to the world

Additional program information and collection access can be found athttp://www.wvu.edu/~thesis/or by contacting John H. Hagen of the University Libraries at John.Hagen@mail.wvu.edu .