ProQuest and Library and Archives Canada Extend Their 20-Year Partnership To Ensure Effective Dissemination and Preservation of Graduate Works
Library and Archives Canada (LAC), the source of enduring knowledge for the government of Canada, its people, and institutions, has signed a new three-year agreement with ProQuest for dissertations and theses processing for the more than sixty universities that participate in its national Theses Canada program. The agreement includes ProQuest’s new cost-saving ETD Administration tool, developed specifically for Canada, which allows universities an option to submit their works electronically at no charge. "This is foundational work between LAC and ProQuest in creating a complete solution that supports migration of scholarly works from print to digital formats," said Rod Gauvin, ProQuest Senior Vice-President, Publishing. "Further, it’s an important step in ensuring Canada’s scholarly record will remain complete and accessible to scholars and researchers around the world."
Through the new agreement, graduate students at institutions that submit theses and dissertations to LAC will have the option to submit their dissertation or thesis in print for a small fee (part of which is subsidized by LAC) or to submit it at no cost using ETD Administrator Canada. About 60% of all dissertations are now submitted to ProQuest electronically, eliminating the packing and shipping of these substantial works and streamlining their processing.
The contract also offers a variety of cost savings for LAC. ProQuest will manage invoicing of individual universities for their dissertation services and will also provide an e-copy of each submitted work as soon as its processed. ProQuest will continue to ensure long-term preservation by creating and storing microfilm copies of all submitted works at its secure, Pennsylvania-based vaults.
ProQuest’s dissertation program is renowned for its ability to surface the research of emerging scholars and researchers around the world, building the reputations of the authors, as well as their schools. Submitted works are added to ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database (PQDT), the world’s most consulted resource devoted to graduate works. The database saw record use in 2010, supporting 200 million searches.
About ProQuest® Dissertations & Theses Database
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database is the seminal repository of intellectual output and emerging research from the world’s great universities. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database, whose precursor UMI was begun in 1939, now encompasses more than one quarter of a billion pages, creating a unique, continually growing trove of emerging research, landmark works and surprisingly engaging prose. Researchers rely on ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database as a source of enlightening information, as a pivotal component in making their own scholarly production available to the world’s intellectual communities. The archive is managed at ProQuest by a team of scholars and technologists, who combine their talents to make the archive accessible, reliable and supported by continually advancing technology.
For more information, visit www.proquest.com.
About ProQuest (www.proquest.com)
ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information. Key to serious research, the company has forged a 70-year reputation as a gateway to the world's knowledge — from dissertations to governmental and cultural archives to news, in all its forms. Its role is essential to libraries and other organizations whose missions depend on the delivery of complete, trustworthy information.
ProQuest's massive information pool is accessible through the all-new ProQuest® platform, which moves beyond navigation to empower researchers to use, create, and share content—accelerating research productivity.
This energetic, fast-growing organization includes the Summon™ web-scale discovery service, the new ProQuest Dialog™ service, and business units ebrary®, Serials Solutions®, RefWorks-COS™, and Bowker®.