Following a catastrophic cyberattack in 2023, we are delighted to relay that the British Library has restored access to the descriptions of many of its electronic thesesis through its open access discovery platform for UK doctoral theses, EThOS. If you are interested in the history of this service, check out the British Library's EThOS FAQs.
A directory not a repository
Before the 2023 cyberattack, electronic theses were available directly to download from EThOS. The new EThOS platform serves as an aggregated record of all doctoral theses awarded by UK Higher Education institutions, allowing you to search across descriptions of over 650,000 theses from UK universities from the 1700s onwards. Many of the records in EThOS include an ‘Access thesis from university’ button that links to the awarding university's institutional repository, which in turn often offers the entire thesis for free download. The EThOS platform itself no longer holds digital copies for you to download directly.
If a thesis you want is not available from an institutional repository, the author themselves might be contactable (although the awarding university is unlikely to be able or willing to supply their contact details) and willing to supply an electronic copy of their thesis. Some theses are adapted and published as monographs the University Library might be able to obtain for you.
Limitations
Please be aware that:
- EThOS only includes UK theses;
- not all UK theses are available through EThOS (universities have to submit details of individual theses to the British Library before they are added);
- not all theses will be made available by institutions, especially those published more than a few years ago.
Finding print theses
Sometimes universities retain printed copies of some older doctoral and MPhil theses, but with space at a premium, even printed theses collections are being downsized over time at some modern universities. If you are interested in viewing a specific thesis, contact the library of the awarding university to check whether it is available and whether you would be able to consult it.
If a thesis is available in print and you are allowed to view it under the SCONUL Access scheme or by private arrangement, you would still have to travel to the institution to consult it in their library - no library is likely to digitise or post a long and heavy thesis to you.