ProQuest, a cloud-based information processing company based in Ann Arbor, has signed a two-year agreement to digitize thousands of theses at the University of Manchester, improving global access to their content and preserving them for future generations of researchers. The discoverability and usage of dissertations can increase when entered in the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global (PQDT) database, which is used at 3,000 universities worldwide and disseminates content into 35 disciplinary indexes.
“Through our ongoing work with ProQuest, we’ve been impressed by the digitization expertise, extensive metadata creation and increased discovery the company provides,” says Sandra Bracegirdle, head of content, collections and discovery for the University of Manchester Library. “When we sought a solution to help us enhance discoverability and preservation of our extensive legacy collection, ProQuest’s high profile in the promotion of research and theses made them the obvious partner for this endeavor.”
Digitization increases the visibility of research output within the academic community across a variety of channels, and saves librarians and researchers time, reclaims space, and reduces costs. ProQuest will be preserving content in both analog and digital formats.
The agreement is an expansion of an existing relationship between ProQuest and the University, which has been providing students and researchers access to curated historical archives, print, and electronic books. The University of Manchester library is one of five national research libraries and is the largest academic library in the United Kingdom.
