Virtual Library of Master's Theses

Like many graduate programs in biology, the Biological Sciences Department requires the writing of a thesis. Some of the theses end up as the basis for published papers, others are the last scientific works their authors produce, but all are the results of hard hours of research.

The University requires that copies of the thesis be deposited at the Library, and copies are traditionally given to the Department and to the members of the Thesis Committee. These accumulate in vast shelves of paper, which will still be intact centuries from now, but which are not easily accessible for others, student and scientist alike, who want to find out what they contain.

This virtual library aims to change that. The theses here are in the Adobe Acrobat portable document format, which is accessible by free "reader" programs on several operating systems. This format is likely to be readable for at least a decade or two, considering how many documents have been published with it.

The collection is now small, but growing. The theses in the library will never become obsolete--paper is still the best inexpensive archival material known. But the electronic versions will come to be the ones that people consult.