eGrove Archives Theses and Dissertations for Generations to Come

by Jordan Orris

The University of Mississippi Libraries has recently launched its “eGrove” archive, a digital library that stores UM yearbooks, theses and dissertations, among other digital media in one centralized, online location.

This new archive is the university’s first campus-wide digital repository, and allows both historic and academic archives to be searched. The online location makes it easy for search engines like Google to comb through the files.

Since January 2019, more than 43,000 files, including photographs, documents, and recordings, have been added to eGrove. Of note to graduate students, graduate theses and dissertations from 2010 to the present have been added to eGrove. This is a phenomenal resource for research, especially when much of academic research builds on what previous students have written about.

This resource is not just useful for UM students, but to those across the globe. As Dr. Michelle Emanuel, Head of Metadata & Digital Initiatives for the UM Libraries shares, “There have been 9,434 downloads in eGrove of theses and dissertations, compared to 2,707 downloads through ProQuest. This is because in the repository, the documents come up in a Google search, and are not limited to researchers with an affiliation with a library that subscribes to ProQuest. The theses/dissertations become Open Access, and are available for anyone to consult at any time.” Dr. Emanuel notes that “we are happy to remove the digital object and/or restrict by embargo (date) for anyone who does not want their work to appear in eGrove.”

Electronic theses and dissertations have been downloaded from nearly 1,500 academic institutions in over 143 countries.

eGrove also functions as a publisher, allowing on-campus groups to publish their own journals. This is a no-cost way of publishing academic research, as groups can set up their own editorial board and review process, with the library publishing the journal.

Additionally, eGrove holds documents from academic conferences and symposiums that are hosted on-campus, plus it can function as a digital convention center. The Comicana, which ran Oct. 7-12, 2019, was held on eGrove.

The link to view graduate level theses and dissertations is listed here: https://bit.ly/30La9Wu