MIT Libraries News

Author Simson Garfinkel reveals the premise behind DSpace, how it works, and why it’s so important to researchers in MIT’s DSpace Explained (Technology Review, July 2005).

This month’s Object of the Month exhibit by the Institute Archives and Special Collections highlights the growing number of MIT theses available electronically in DSpace. The paper copies of the more than 110,000 theses written since the first class graduated in 1868 are among the collections in the Institute Archives. The Archives also holds the official records of the Institute, papers of MIT faculty members, MIT publications, and rare books.

Each month the Archives exhibits an “object” to illustrate the richness and variety of its collections and invite their further exploration. A poster is displayed in the exhibit case opposite Room 14N-118 (and the following month in the Libraries’ kiosk at the Stata Center), and a version is created for the Web. Browsing the exhibits at http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/mithistory/exhibits-object.html may whet your appetite for more information about MIT’s history and the extraordinary men and women who are a part of that history.

The MIT Libraries have added over 11,000 electronic copies of MIT theses to DSpace— doubling the content of the digital archive and providing worldwide exposure to the work of MIT scholars. The MIT thesis collection is already one of the most widely-used collections of its kind and contains the theses of many well-known MIT alumni, including several Nobel Prize winners. In DSpace their work, and the valuable research of many others, will now be even more accessible from the Web.

To find theses in DSpace, go to: http://libraries.mit.edu/mit-theses. Current MIT students, faculty and staff are able to print PDF files of theses (certificates required). Non-MIT users have access to a readable copy and are given the option of purchasing printable files.

The 11,000 theses in DSpace represent a small portion of the over 100,000 theses found in the collection. The full collection of paper theses dating from 1868 can be found in the Institute Archives. More theses will be added to DSpace as they are scanned on demand or submitted electronically. Recent MIT graduates or students about to complete their degree may submit an electronic version of their theses directly to DSpace: http://web.mit.edu/etheses.

The 2nd DSpace Federation User Group meeting will be held at the University of Cambridge July 7-8, 2005. The objective of the User Group meeting is to bring together the DSpace open source community to share experiences and discuss the future development of the DSpace platform and the Federation of adopters. For more information see the meeting website.

DSpace version 1.2.2 is available. Download the newest release from SourceForge. This release includes several new features developed by members of the DSpace community.

The latest set of installation and technical documentation is also available.