Dissertations and Theses

Doctoral dissertations and master's theses are possibly the most sought after type of material among students. In order to give students access 24×7 to the largest collection of dissertations possible, the HKU Libraries joined the Digital Dissertation Consortium in the Summer of 2003 to acquire dissertations from UMI ProQuest. UMI maintains a central, authoritative dissertation database, with 1.8 million full-text titles.

HKU Libraries' Digital Dissertation Consortium search screen (click to enlarge)

The Digital Dissertation Consortium database currently contains over 61,000 UMI digital dissertations, and each member contributes to the growth of the database by purchasing about 150 titles a year. The consortium now consists of about 90 members from Taiwan and Hong Kong , which is almost double the original number of members in 2002.

A page from the dissertation: Houses and settlements: Returned overseas Chinese architecture in Xiamen, 1890s-1930s. It contains a drawing of two famous collleges of Xiamen during Qing Daoguang period (click to enlarge)

The database is hosted by Academic Sinica Computing Center in Taiwan , which organized the consortium in cooperation with ProQuest Information and Learning and its service agent, Transmission Books & Microinfo Co., Ltd.

One year after joining the Digital Dissertation Consortium, HKU Libraries added the China Doctor[al]/Master's Dissertations Full-text Database (CDMD) to its e-book collection. The CDMD is part of the China National Knowledge Infrastructure project and is a significant source of information on the latest research developments in China . It covers a range of subject areas including the sciences, engineering, medicine, law and political sciences, education, and the arts and humanities.

CDMD' advance search on HKU Libraries (click to enlarge)

CDMD gives HKU users instant desktop access to more than 290,000 doctoral and 60,000 master's dissertations accepted since 1999 at over 380 universities in China . Over 28,000 dissertations are added each year.

Dissertations and theses are extremely valuable resources that are not available through popular distribution channels — travel to national and university libraries is often the only way to access them. The Digital Dissertation Consortium and CDMD change all that.

Go to Digital Dissertation Consortium.
Get more information about Digital Dissertation Consortium.

Go to CDMD.
Get more information about CDMD.