Theses & Dissertations

This guide explains how to find and acquire 1) Cal Poly Humboldt masters theses; and 2) theses and dissertations produced at other universities that are available from other libraries or fulltext on the Internet.

Cal Poly Humboldt Masters Theses Theses and Dissertations At Other Universities Acquiring Theses and Dissertations

Over 4000 masters theses are housed in the Cal Poly Humboldt Library. They are listed in the Cal Poly Humboldt Library Catalog where they are indexed by author, title, subject and department. In the catalog, theses may be browsed using the subject search: Humboldt State University Theses.

One copy is generally located in the regular bookstacks for theses completed through Fall 2005. Most theses completed since Fall 2005 are available online with links to the fulltext in the library catalog or directly through Humboldt Digital Scholar (HDS) and Humboldt Digital Commons. In HDS you can browse or search Cal Poly Humboldt masters theses by a variety of fields including author, title, thesis advisor, keyword or program. All theses completed from 2016-2017 onward will be hosted on Humboldt Digital Commons. Beginning with spring 2013, theses (and projects) are only available online.  For more detailed information about Cal Poly Humboldt masters theses and projects, as well as senior theses and projects, see Cal Poly Humboldt Theses and Projects.

You can use the following resources to identify and, in some cases, view the fulltext of theses and dissertations completed at other universities.

• Dissertations and Theses: the Humanities and Social Sciences Collection (Cal Poly Humboldt users only) Includes more than one million U.S. dissertations and theses in the humanities and social sciences, most of which are available fulltext.
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) Indexes and links to over 800,000 fulltext theses and dissertations. Click the "ETD Search" tab to start searching.
• Oaister Indexes fulltext resources contained in "open access" collections worldwide, including over 450,000 fulltext theses and dissertations. After conducting a search the results screen will give an option to display only theses and dissertations.
• PQDT Open (ProQuest) Find and access the fulltext of open access dissertations and theses.
• Individual universities: Library catalogs at universities commonly list theses and dissertations completed at their institution. In addition the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) lists "open access" fulltext repositories at universities, including over 150 repositories devoted just to theses and dissertations. ROAR will also search the content of these repositories.

In addition the following resources can be used to identify and link to the fulltext of theses and dissertations in specific countries or geographic areas.

• Trove (Council of Australian University Librarians) Search Australian theses and other cultural and academic content.
• DART-Europe E-Theses Portal (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche) Indexes and provides fulltext access to over 125,000 European theses and dissertations.
• EthOS--Electronic Theses Online Service (British Library) Search 250,000 UK theses, some of which are available fulltext for immediate downloading and others which must first be digitized for a fee.
• Theses Canada Portal (National Library of Canada) Indexes over 300,000 Canadian theses and dissertations and provides access to 50,000 of them in fulltext format.

If a thesis or dissertation is not available fulltext on the Internet the following choices are available to Cal Poly Humboldt students, faculty and staff.

• Resource Sharing (Cal Poly Humboldt Library) Cal Poly Humboldt students, faculty and staff can request theses and dissertations from other institutions through this service. There is a separate request form for theses and dissertations.
• Dissertation Express Sells most U.S. dissertations with a delivery time of 4 -5 working days for paper or immediate download for fulltext.