After decades of purchasing dissertations from UK universities, CRL is now working with the British Library to provide Web access to dissertations and theses through the EThOS database.

According to CRL President Bernard Reilly, “This joint effort by CRL and the British Library will bring the products of important graduate research at a number of distinguished U.K. universities within reach for scholars in North America and worldwide.” CRL has sponsored the digitization of 400 dissertations, about half of which focus on the Middle East, the Persian Gulf region and/or Islam.  The remaining titles are high-use items on a  number of topics.

CRL’s sponsorship will make this body of scholarship accessible to the thousands of graduate and postgraduate researchers in the CRL community. The EThOS collaboration builds on a history of cooperation between CRL and the British Library in the field of newspaper and archives preservation.