Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 19:13:22 +0000
From: "David L. Gants" <dgants@english.uga.edu>
Subject: Archiving dissertations
>> From: c.warwick@sheffield.ac.uk
Dear Humanists,
I wonder is anyone out there has experience of electronic archiving
of student dissertations. This is not so much from the point of view
of the intellectual property rights, as discussed on humanist a
while back, (although this of course is very important) but more in
terms of technical standards and perhaps software. We at
Information Studies in Sheffield are considering how we might
make back copies of our student MA/MSc dissertations available,
initially at least, to other students electronically, especially to
those doing distance learning courses. At present they are
archived in hard copy by us but this is creating work fro our office
staff who have to fetch copies, as well as problems keeping track
of those on loan. Electronic access is therefore a possible way of
solving this problems.
It makes sense to think carefully about this at the start, since if we
can make this work then the rest of the university may follow our
lead. I know that there will be problems of access (to whom, inside
the university, outside it?), of possible confidentiality and copyright,
but we need to start somewhere. I am also, as a detemined user of
SGML keen not to make this at all platform or software dependent,
but at the same time to make it manageable fro our students
themselves. Essentially also it must hot place any greater load on
the office staff than the current system. We are also thinking that
we might tie it in with a just in time electronic publishing system for
research reports. Obviously there is quite a bit of expertise here in
Sheffield in various relevant fields, but if someone has done this
already then it will save us from trying to re-invent the wheel, and
wasting time and effort in doing so.
I would be most grateful to anyone who can offer us any insights
into projects, whether quick and dirty or large and impressive.
Best
Claire
Dr Claire Warwick
Lecturer
Department of Information Studies
University of Sheffield
Regent Court
211 Portobello Street
Sheffield S1 4DP
0114 222 2632
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