Subject guide
Theses
Bachelor and Master theses of Leiden Universtity
As a rule, printed BA and MA theses were not included in the library collection. Starting 2010, BA and MA theses of the Faculties of Archaeology, Humanities, and Social and Behavioural Sciences are included in the Student Repository of Scholarly Publications. These theses are not included in the catalogue, but the titles can be found in Google Scholar.
If you are looking for an unpublished thesis it is advised to contact the secretariat of the department where the author of the thesis concerned has graduated.
At the Wijnhaven library you can find theses of Public Administration that were handed in between 2010 and 2011. The theses are available for loan.
Bachelor and Master theses of other Dutch universities
Erasmus University Thesis Repository
Radboud Educational Repository
University of Groningen Thesis Research Portal
Leiden PhD theses
Digitized
Recent PhD theses (from approximately 2005 on) by Leiden PhD students are available digitally through Scholarly Publications. The site offers free access to these PhD theses. However, in some cases a thesis may be under embargo temporarily and access to its full-text version will only be granted later.
Printed
All Leiden PhD theses are included in the Catalogue, file tab Leiden Collections. Narrow down your question by typing dissertation in a second search field.
Dutch PhD theses
Recent PhD theses (from approximately 2005 on) from all universities in the Netherlands are available digitally through OpenAire, a database with free access. However, in some cases also here a thesis may be under embargo temporarily and access to the full-text version of the thesis may only be granted at a later date.
For paper versions of Dutch PhD theses that cannot be found in the Catalogue refer to WorldCat. This database contains the holdings of all Dutch university libraries and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek.
International PhD theses
Many recent scientific publications, including PhD theses, are offered full-text in repositories on the internet, free of charge. The websites mentioned below offer access to collections of repositories:
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The British site OpenDOAR (The Directory of Open Access Repositories) offers access to more than 1500 repositories world-wide. All included repositories have been reviewed and approved by OpenDOAR staff members. The site maintains a user-friendly interface.
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OATD (Open Access Theses and Dissertations) is a resource maintained by several US University Libraries, for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. OATD tries to index only graduate-level theses and dissertations that are freely available to download, they leave out closed-access and embargoed ETDs.
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The British site ROAR (Registry of Open Access Repositories) also offers access to repositories world-wide, but, contrary to OpenDOAR, is filled automatically.
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OpenAIRE (Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe) gives an overview of, and offers access to more than 8.000.000 of Open Access publications from 460+ data providers, with links to funding, datasets and more.
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OIAster (originally a project by Michigan University, USA) offers access to scientific publications world-wide. Since December 2009 this database has been integrated in WorldCat.
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DART-Europe is a webportal that provides access to more then 360.000 scientific dissertations from more then 500 European universities. DART stands for Digital Archive of Research Theses
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EBSCO Open Dissertations: a free database containing hundreds of thousands digital dissertations and theses. Its contents are harvested from repositories of research universities from around the world.
Through the Catalogue (tab Database Search) you are offered access to the following databases of PhD theses:
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China Dissertations: contains full-text PhD theses from 1999 on. Access only with a ULCN account and matching password.
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Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global database with data (not full-text, but abstracts) of mainly North American PhD theses beginning in 1637. It is possible to order the full-text on payment. Access only available with a ULCN account and matching password.