Information about all theses received by the library can be found on iFind discover, the library catalogue. To check whether the library holds a copy of a particular thesis carry out a search within All Fields on iFind discover. You can do an author-title search by entering the author's last name (family name) and one or two keywords from the title and clicking on Find.  A list of all materials matching these criteria will be listed.  See below to limit this list just to theses by using the Refine Search panel on the left hand side of the screen. 

Theses for most subjects are held in a closed store in the Library & Information Centre (LIC). The South Wales Miners' Library also has a small collection of DACE theses as well as some dissertations.
The iFind discover catalogue record for a thesis will indicate its branch location. 

Lists of Recent Theses

Click the relevant link below for a list of recent theses (2008-2011) in PDF format:

Arts and Humanities Theses  | Engineering Theses | Environment and Society Theses | Health and Medicine Theses | Physical Sciences Theses | Social sciences, Law and Business theses

The theses collection is reference only. If you wish to consult a thesis, give the author, title and year of the thesis to staff at the Information Desk in the LIC (or the Issue Desk in South Wales Miners' Library). ISS staff will collect the item for you from the closed store. The thesis will be issued to your library card but is for use in the library only. You must also sign the declaration in the front of the thesis agreeing to acknowledge the work of the author if you refer to it. Return the item to the Information Desk (or Issue Desk) when you have finished with it and it will be discharged from your library card.

Barred theses

A few theses are barred from public access for several years - this is usually because the work has commercial potential and the student has obtained permission from the University not to make it public straight away. If this happens there will be a note on the catalogue record giving the date when the information will be released. No one will be allowed to read the thesis before that date.

Special theses

DSc. and D.Litt theses for all subjects are kept in the Library and Information Centre. Please ask for them at the Information Desk.

Finding Theses in iFind Discover

• The simplest way to find theses on a topic in iFind Discover is to do a keyword search then look at the filters in the Refine Search box at the left of the results screen. Under Location you will see LIC Theses - Ask at Information Desk - Library use only. Click on this and the results you are left with will all be theses. You may wish to refine your search further by looking at the Corporate Author options to pick out theses written in a particular department.
• Another way of searching is to change the iFind search option to Author then search for Swansea Engineering, Swansea History, etc. This should find many of the theses written within a particular department although many departments have changed name over the years so it is difficult to get a comprehensive list this way.

If you are particularly interested in recent theses you can change the Sort by menu at the top of the results list to Date descending to bring the most recent to the top.

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online Service

EThOS has been created to offer a single point of access to UK theses and plays a significant role in showcasing UK research to the world.  EThOS, which is hosted by the British Library, has  more than 100 UK universities involved in the project and can offer an ever expanding range of titles as full text downloads.

Search the EThOS catalogue here

If an item you require is already in EThOS then it is immediately available for download to your desktop free of charge; if not, then you can choose to purchase a scanned copy from EThOS. 

• You can make a speculative request for digitisation of a thesis that does not have a record on the EThOS database here.
• You will be required to create a personal account and pay by credit card for the request to digitise the thesis or, should you want your department to pay for digitisation, please contact Document Supply Services on extension 5045 or email dscs@swansea.ac.uk. 
• Some institutions do not yet participate with EThOS in the digitisation project.  We can check to see if we can borrow or purchase a paper copy for you to use here in ISS via inter-library loan.

Other Resources:

Lending Theses - UK Policies .  This document provides a current listing of lending policies via inter-library loan.  Most institutions now particpate with the British Library EThOS service; this list illustrates the potential availability of lending and copying of paper theses by higher education institutions in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Eire.

Index to Theses covers theses accepted for higher degrees in Great Britain and Ireland.

Dissertations and Theses  provides details of theses and dissertations produced outside the U.K. and covers the period 1861 to present.  Dissertations and Theses covers material produced in the U.S.A., Mexico and Canada and also contains some European theses.

Australia: The Australian Trove portal provides full-text access to a wide range of Australian (plus some New Zealand) higher degree theses. You can also restrict your search to digital theses where many are available full text.

Canada: Theses Canada Portal provides full-text access to theses submitted to the Theses Canada programme between 1998 and 2002.

France & French speaking countries: Cybertheses also gives access to the South American Thesis portal.

Germany: Search for theses via the Deutsche National Bibliothek catalogue. Set "Hochschulschriftenvermerk" to "diss" to limit a search to doctoral theses and use "Alle Begriffe" (all terms) to enter search terms. All German doctoral theses are published and should be more widely available than their British counterparts. Dissertation.de is a commercial dissertation provider for German theses.

Wales: Theses Collection Wales includes approximately 50,000 theses and dissertations which have been presented for postgraduate degrees in higher educational institutions (HEIs) in Wales. The collection comprises theses and dissertations arising from all PhD and research Masters degrees, as well as taught Masters dissertations which have a Welsh interest or have gained a distinction.

OAIster is a union catalogue of digital resources from Universities and other institutions from all over the world which includes records for many theses.

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) gives links to many theses, including some full text links to repositories where available.  Most are from North America.   It includes links to Australasian databases of theses.