Rensselaer Libraries

Searching for Rensselaer theses and dissertations

All Rensselaer theses and dissertations can be searched in the Libraries' catalog by author, title, subject, and department.

Find Rensselaer theses and dissertations in the Libraries' catalog.

Availability of Rensselaer theses and dissertations

Rensselaer faculty, staff, and students

All theses and dissertations completed since 2007 (and selected pre-2007 theses and dissertations) are made available electronically to the Rensselaer community via Rensselaer Digital Collections. All others are available in print or microfilm for use in the Folsom Library. Rensselaer faculty, staff, and students may also access scanned versions of selected Ph.D. dissertations dating from 1996 and earlier via ProQuest's Dissertations and Theses @ Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute database.

Non-Rensselaer community requests

Individual researchers may request a PDF file of Rensselaer theses and dissertations in accordance with U.S. Copyright Law "fair use" limitations by contacting Rensselaer InterLibrary Loan.

Finding and obtaining theses from other universities

Theses and dissertations of many North American universities, as well as some foreign institutions, are indexed in Proquest's Dissertations & Theses database.

You can also locate theses completed at other schools from the following sources:

• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) : The NDLTD is a growing database of theses in electronic format voluntarily reported by universities.
• WorldCat : A large database indexing the collections of thousands of libraries in North American and the world.
• Google : Google does not index dissertations and theses systematically. Both Google Scholar and Google Books list references to theses and dissertation within the publications they index. A general Google search will retrieve some theses not picked up by either Google Scholar or Google Books.

Because most theses and dissertations are not published commercially and are not widely distributed, it is usually necessary to use the Libraries' InterLibrary Loan service to obtain copies. Costs vary from $25.00 to $120.00 per dissertation or thesis.

This page is maintained by Katie Dunn.

• Interlibrary Loan
• Using Other Libraries
• Copyright Law