12. Write Your Name into the History of Science

The University of Tartu Library has been offering all its alumni the possibility of granting the library the permission to add their graduation theses to the University’s digital archive DSpace for two years now.

Ten years ago, the UT Library was the first in Estonia to start the current electronic archiving of doctoral theses. The development of a complete collection of e-dissertations is guaranteed by a change in the University regulation concerning the defence of doctoral dissertations, which obliges doctoral students to cooperate with the digital archive. Digitisation of older doctoral theses, defended throughout the University’s 382-year history, was also started in 2004. Today, the University requires that all theses – doctoral, Master’s and Bachelor’s should be electronically archived.

For the project ‘Write Your Name into the History of Science’, we expect alumni to archive their bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral theses and prize-winning essays and studies completed before the onset of the ‘digital age’. We believe it is important that the international scientific community should have electronic access to works that have so far been available only in printed form. Alumni can submit their work for archiving by digitally signing (as it is customary in Estonia) an electronic agreement. The authors permit their works to be digitised at the Library and uploaded to the UT digital archive. Permission can also be obtained from the descendants of deceased alumni. Calls for alumni to submit their works to the digital archive and additional information was promoted via social media and on TV, and via different web pages and community lists.

Today, the digital collection of UT theses and research works contains:

• 2,443 doctoral theses defended at the University of Tartu during the recent decade;
• 1,886 theses and studies written from the 17th century up to 1918;
• 6,985 already born-digital or digitised bachelor’s and master’s theses from the second half of the 19th century up to the present day.

All these materials have been integrated into the DART-Europe E-theses Portal. The UT Library is also ready to archive research data.

UT pays meticulous attention to authors’ rights. For the UT Library, cooperation with alumni is essential in making the theses defended at the University accessible to the students and researchers of today and tomorrow. Our project actively supports the Open Access initiative and we are all for the OA publication principle!