JISC

Electronic theses held at Welsh universities can now be automatically deposited at the National Library of Wales thanks to a JISC project – the Repository Bridge - which has successfully completed its work.

As one of the UK’s legal deposit libraries, the National Library of Wales receives copies of all doctoral and research masters level theses produced at Welsh universities. Providing a system which continued this but which exploited the potential for electronic deposit and access was central to the work of the project. Based at the University of Wales Aberystwyth and the University of Wales Swansea, the Repository Bridge is now able to add the theses of other higher education institutions in Wales to the digital repository at the National Library.

With the UK as a whole moving towards the electronic provision of theses, the new system will also provide a regional hub for the UK-wide EThOS project which is looking to create a federated structure for the electronic depositing of the more than 14,000 theses produced in the UK each year. Technical innovations devised by the project have been recommended in a recent national report for wider adoption.

Arwel Jones, head of digital developments at the National Library of Wales, said: ‘The National Library of Wales is very happy with the new system which builds on a 100 year agreement between the Library and Welsh universities. This project will move the national collection of theses into the digital world and will in the future allow researchers to access these theses electronically.’

Neil Jacobs, manager of JISC’s digital repositories programme, of which the Repository Bridge is a part, said: ‘Being one of the first projects within the Digital Repositories programme to finish, Repository Bridge has set a high standard for the others to follow.  The emerging UK e-theses infrastructure has taken a significant step forward with the creation, by the Repository Bridge project, of a technical architecture to link together the systems holding Welsh e-theses.  The technical 'bridge' between universities and colleges, and the National Library of Wales, will smooth the way for doctoral research in Wales to be more easily accessed and preserved. There is much work underway at the moment, within Wales, the UK, Europe and across the globe, to use the Internet to maximise the use, and therefore value, of PhD theses.  The Repository Bridge plays an important part in this work.’

Further information
The Repository Bridge  

JISC digital repositories programme