The University Library maintains copies of printed dissertations, theses, and projects from UToledo graduates.
Archival copies of main campus printed theses, dissertations, and project requirements are maintained by the Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections on the fifth floor of Carlson Library. The Canaday Center maintains on site those dissertations dating from 1996 to current, and theses and project requirements dating 1913-1968 and 2000-current. All others are stored at the Northwest Ohio Book Depository. The archival copies do not circulate. However, patrons may use the archival copy in the Canaday Center’s reading room. Those housed at the depository can be requested for on-site use by contacting the Canaday Center staff at 419-530-4480.
To search the UToledo Library Catalog for these materials, you can search by title, for the student's name (or advisor's name for recent materials) by author, or you can search by keywords and limit to Material Type: Thesis/Diss. You can also find all of the theses, dissertations, or projects from a specific department by searching for the title using the type of document and the department: UToledo Dissertation Chemistry, for example.
Electronic copies of UToledo doctoral dissertations (but not all theses, though Health Science theses are included) for recent years may be available free of charge from ProQuest Theses & Dissertations. Or, some UToledo students have chosen to submit their theses or dissertations electronically to the Electronic Thesis & Dissertation Center.
Using the OhioLINK Library Catalog, you can search for dissertations
and theses completed at other Ohio universities and colleges if they
are included in that library's catalog. Using Keywords, you can again limit to Material Type: Thesis/Diss.
OhioLINK theses and dissertations may also be available from the Electronic Thesis & Dissertation Center.
In recent years, more and more students are publishing their work as Electronic Theses or Dissertations and making the publication available for free on the web. Often these are made available through institutional respositories associated with their college or university, or a network of institutions. Not every dissertation or thesis is available this way, and the less recent the publication date, the less likely it was made available as an ETD. Here are some places to search across a large number of dissertation repositories. You should also check the website of the college or university the student graduated from to see if there is any mention of ETDs.
Using ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, you can search for dissertations done in a wide variety of U.S. and international universities. This database is the electronic equivalent of the Dissertation Abstracts publication back to 1861, and abstracts are available for entries back to 1980. You can search the database by keyword to find citation information for publications from many colleges and universities. Most publications since 1998 have a free 24-page preview of the publication, which often includes the full table of contents and a portion of the first chapter... enough to see whether the dissertation or thesis will be useful to you.
The publications that you find in this database can be purchased from Proquest in a variety of formats, or can often be obtained through our Interlibrary Loan Service by UToledo faculty, staff, and students. When submitting your request using ILLiad, you can use the New Request > Thesis & Dissertation form and fill in as much information as possible.
Dissertations from recent years may be available in electronic format for purchase, and those from UToledo that are available electronically are free of charge.