LibGuides: Law (Postgraduates): Theses

Finding theses

These databases provide free access to the fulltext of Australian and international theses.

Open Access Theses & Dissertations (OATD)
Aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world.
BASE
Limit your search to 'theses' in this database
Open Thesis
OpenThesis is a free repository of theses, dissertations, and other academic documents.

Australasian Digital Theses on Trove
Use the Australian National Library's search engine Trove to find Australian theses. In Advanced Search, select "Thesis" under Format menu.
Southern Cross Research Portal Theses
Provides access to recent SCU theses in electronic form.
SCU Special collections
The Library holds at least one copy of Southern Cross University higher degree theses (Master by Research and Doctorate) and some Honours' theses. One copy of each thesis is kept in the Library Archives. The second copy of the thesis, if available, is kept in the Thesis Collection for loan. A small number of theses from other institutions are in the general collection.

British Library's Electronic Thesis Online Service
Occasionally theses theses are freely available to download; you have to register to do this. This is a huge repository of theses, but it is very expensive to source the full text.
DART-Europe E-theses Portal
DART-Europe is a partnership of research libraries and library consortia who are working together to improve global access to European research theses.
Global ETD Search
Resources to find available open-access electronic theses and dissertations.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
An international electronic thesis repository. Only some will be available full text.
New Zealand Educational Theses database
Made available by the NZ Council for Educational Research. NZET contains more han 10, 000 doctoral, masters and diploma theses in education topics about New Zealand and by New Zealanders at a wide range of overseas tertiary institutions. The theses date back to 1970's, many with links to fulltext.
PQDT Open
Provides the full text of open access dissertations free of charge, via ProQuest's UMI Dissertation Publishing
Theses Canada
The portal for Canadian theses and includes free access to electronic theses where available (especially between 1998-2002.)
WorldCat
Is a collection of library catalogues from around the world. Enter your keywords as well as the word 'thesis' in the search box.

Searching for theses in databases

Proquest Advanced Search
Limit your search to Source type > Dissertations & Theses. Proquest includes a short preview of each thesis listed.

APA PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Limit your search to Document type > Dissertations

Borrowing theses

Once you know the details of a thesis, how do you obtain the thesis? Here is a summary of what to do:

Search the library catalogue to find out if it is available for loan in the library collection.
Browse or search Trove (via NLA), and Southern Cross Research Portal sites to see if the thesis is available online.
For theses not held at SCU library and not available online, contact the library Document Supply Service for assistance as they may be able to borrow the thesis from another library.

Thesis Whisperer

The Thesis Whisperer is a blog newspaper dedicated to the topic of doing a thesis and is edited by Dr Inger Mewburn, Director of research training at the Australian National University. Contributions are welcomed...