IPSWICH, Mass. — June 26, 2014 — The H.W. Wilson Foundation has announced that it will fund the digitization of the print index Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities (DDAAU) under a new agreement with EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO). EBSCO will digitize the content and build a free database in cooperation with the Congregational Library & Archives in Boston.
The Congregational Library & Archives in Boston will coordinate the management of the project for the H.W. Wilson Foundation. The database will be openly available online and searchable by fields that include dissertation title, author and school. Since DDAAU can be added to EBSCOhost® or EBSCO Discovery Service™ profiles, libraries can also establish custom links to the full text where it may reside for them (in the institutional repositories, etc.).
DDAAU was published by the H.W. Wilson Company from the years 1933 through 1955. This print index was compiled annually for the National Research Council and The American Council of Learned Societies by the Association of Research Libraries. Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities was the only comprehensive record of dissertations accepted by U.S. universities during that period of time.
EBSCO will host the DDAAU database on the EBSCOhost platform and the content will be available via EBSCO Discovery Service but EBSCO will also make DDAAU freely available to researchers on the open Web worldwide.
H. W. Wilson Foundation President, Harold Regan, says offering an online database of these records will allow universities to match up their own print/electronic holdings of past dissertations to the index. “The benefit of digitizing the DDAAU index will be the reclaiming bibliographic control of US dissertations since there is no searchable index available of dissertations published during the 1930s to 1950s.“
EBSCO Senior Vice President of Business Development, Mark Herrick says this database is a way to pull together dissertations to expose their valuable content and provide a roadmap to these previously hidden theses. “By digitizing Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities and making it available for free, EBSCO is providing a new way to access scholarly writing for a vital time period in American history.”
The database is expected to be available in September 2014.
About the Congregational Library & Archives
Founded in 1853, the Congregational Library and Archives serves professional scholars, graduate students, and genealogists who use the resources of our historical collections. Its digital collections including Colonial-era church records and manuscripts are accessible through its website to anyone. http://www.congregationallibrary.org/
About the H.W. Wilson Foundation
The Foundation was established by Halsey W. Wilson in 1952 to support the needs of company employees and retirees. Requests for funding were reviewed by the Board of Directors. By 1957, the Foundation directed its funding efforts to support libraries, library associations, historical societies, cultural programs and scholarships for library and information science programs accredited by the American Library Association. Major donors to the Foundation included Mr. and Mrs. H.W. Wilson, and the H.W. Wilson Company. http://thwwf.org/
About EBSCO Information Services
EBSCO Information Services is the leading discovery service provider for libraries worldwide with more than 6,000 customers in over 100 countries. EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) provides each institution with a comprehensive, single search box for its entire collection, offering unparalleled relevance ranking quality and extensive customization. EBSCO is also the preeminent provider of online research content for libraries, including hundreds of research databases, historical archives, point-of-care medical reference, and corporate learning tools. EBSCO is the leading provider of electronic journals & books for libraries, with subscription management for more than 360,000 serials, including more than 57,000 e-journals, as well as online access to more than 550,000 e-books. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at: www.ebsco.com. EBSCO Information Services is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a family owned company since 1944.
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For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Vice President of Communications
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebsco.com
