Digitization Project Paves the Way for Future Open Access

"The Texas A&M University Libraries launched the pilot Thesis and Dissertation Digitization Project last fall, which digitized 300 dissertations from 1940 through 1959, and 63 engineering records of study from 1975 through 1998. The multi-year pilot project is funded by a $15,000 grant from the Texas Pioneer Foundation to support the time and resources needed. The digitization project enables a comprehensive set of materials to be made available online in the OAK Trust, which is the University Libraries’ institutional repository. With the digitizing of the original legacy engineering records of study and dissertations being completed in March 2013 and September 2013, the fragile, physical copies have been shipped back to storage for preservation. The digitized materials were formatted into PDFs to then be associated with their metadata and uploaded in the digital repository, where they are now available. It was not until 2004 that it became mandatory for all dissertations at Texas A&M to be made available online for Open Access. The pre-2004 engineering dissertations were cataloged, shelved and stewarded by the Libraries, but had not been digitized until funding for the digitization project became available, allowing these legacy dissertations and records of study to be made accessible online. The engineering records of study were collected from the Engineering Department prior to the start of the project ..."