Where Have all of the Dissertations Gone?
A Comparison of RILM, Music Index, DDM-Online,
and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses
Kirstin Dougan
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Presented by John Wagstaff
Music Library Association Annual Meeting
March 2010, San Diego, CA
What’s the problem here?
 Locating dissertations
 Various formats, including emergence of
electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs)
 Various online tools for identifying, and now with
ETDs, accessing
 Physical and/or ETD copy of dissertation may be
deposited with Library, Department, Graduate
School, and/or directly with UMI/ProQuest
 Challenges of author-supplied content and
metadata
Dissertation Formats
Print
Dissertation
Microform
Electronic
Thesis or
Dissertation
(ETD)
Findability
Local Library
Catalog
Local ETD
Depository
WorldCat
RILM,
Music
Index,
DDMOnline,
etc.
Citation
Abstracting
and Indexing
Databases
ProQuest
Dissertations
and Theses
Local
Institutional
Repository
Other ETD
or Scholarly
Repositories
Description of the Study
 Comparison of online versions of
 RILM
 Music Index
 Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology-Online
(DDM)
 ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT)
 Searching for known dissertations in musicology
 Schools with similar PhD programs chosen:
UIUC, UNC-CH, IU
Coverage Comparison
Dissertation
types
RILM
MI
Doctoral and
non-doctoral
Doctoral only
DDM
PQDT
US Degree types
Doctoral only;
Finished and in
progress
PhD, DMA, EdD Ph.D., D.M.A.,
Primarily PhD
A.Mus.D., Ed.D., and DMA, some
D.Ed. D.M.E.,
EdD
D.A.
Dissertations and
theses
Subjects
All music
All music
Dates covered
1969-present
1972-present
Musicology,
Performance,
Music Education
(PhD)
1897*-present
1861*-present
Abstracts
Student-supplied
metadata?
International?
Cost ?
Yes
Yes
No
Yes/No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Intl
$
U.S./Canada
$
Intl
Free
Intl
$
PhD, D.M.A.,
Ed.D., D.Ed.
D.M.E.,
A.Mus.D.,
Mus.D.
All
Search Options Comparison
 RILM, Music Index, and PQDT allow searching
by specific fields and/or keywords anywhere
 RILM and PQDT include abstracts, so more data
for keyword searches to search
 DDM
 only allows keywords anywhere
 does have an author index
 does have time-period index
 does allow searching of “all,” “completed,” or
“in-progress” dissertations
RILM Field Choices
Music Index Field Choices
PQDT Field Choices
Field comparison chart-1
RILM (via Ebsco)
Music Index (via
Ebsco)
PQDT
DDM*
Title
Title [includes school,
degree and date]
Document Title
Record Type
Document Type
[dissertation]
Publication Type
Source type
Authors
Authors
Author
Subject Terms
Subject name/code
Index terms
[additional
(Keyword(s))
keywords]
[title]
[author]
Major Topics
Subjects
Abstract
Abstract
Abstractor Name
Publication Date
[see title above]
Date
Field comparison chart-2
Music Index (via
Ebsco)
RILM (via Ebsco)
Dissertation Source
[school and degree] [see title above]
PQDT
DDM*
Degree
[degree]
School name/Code
[school]
School Location
Publisher [UMI]
Country of
Publication
Source [DAI]
Country of
Publication
Source [DAI]
Language
Language
Document Language
ISBN
ISSN
ISBN
Pagination
Physical Description
RILM Source
UMI Number
[UM[I] number]
Field comparison chart-3
RILM (via
Ebsco)
Music Index
(via Ebsco)
PQDT
DDM*
ISBN
ISSN
ISBN
RILM Source
Accession
Number
Accession
Number
ProQuest Document [DDM code, DA[I] number,
ID
RILM number]
Volume/Issue (DVI)
[DAI?]
Journal Subset
Advisor
Committee Member
Dissertation Field
Department
Publication Number
Supplemental files
Dcoument text
[Research director]
Search Methodology
 Master lists of completed dissertations were obtained
from three school’s Musicology web sites
 Musicology focus because of manageability and because
DDM is somewhat more limited in scope than the other
databases
 General searches were conducted in each online
resource to cast wide net for each school for PhD
dissertations in musicology between 1979 and 2008
 Search results were compared against master lists
 Any dissertations not found in general searches were
searched by name and/or title
Percent of Titles Found & Not Found
RILM
Found
Not
found
MI
Found
DDM
Not
found
Found
PQDT
Not
found
Found
Not
found
UIUC
82.30% 17.70% 93.70% 6.30% 46.80% 53.20%
100%
0%
UNCCH
82.30% 17.70% 94.90% 5.10% 88.60% 11.40%
100%
0%
IU
88.80% 11.10% 97.30% 2.80%
100%
0%
97.20% 2.80%
Average 84.47% 15.50% 95.30% 4.73% 78.47% 21.53% 99.07% 0.93%
Ranking by titles found*
1. ProQuest
2. MI
3. RILM
4. DDM
99.07%
95.03%
84.47%
78.47%
*Average across all three schools
Analysis of anomalies/not-founds
 RILM and Music Index
 Not-founds generally newest (3 years old and newer)
 When necessary to find by name or title was because
key data such as full school name or degree
information missing
 DDM
 Depends heavily on whether school requires
submission
 ProQuest
 Almost 100% find rate--one not found because “music”
not listed in subject
Other data issues observed
 Degree notation varies by school and/or
over time
 DMEd vs EdD
 Challenges in student-assigned metadata and
findability
 Self-chosen keywords/subjects
 Often omit key information such as
department
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
 Since late 1980s
 Many universities now only accept electronic copies (usually
PDFs) of dissertations as the official format
 University may have ETD repository and/or a general
institutional repository OR may just house ETD with PQDT
 Potentially many access points to the ETD beyond the ones
already discussed
ETD Sources Besides PQDT
 Thesis repositories
 Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
 CRL’s foreign dissertation collection
 Scholarly repositories/indexes
 OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories)
 Google Scholar (working with PQDT)
 Country or topic-specific sources (not all ETDs, not all
music)
 Theses Canada Portal
 Music Theory Online Dissertation Index
 Individual schools
 Institutional repositories
 Institutional ETD repositories