Dissertations and Theses

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Stanford Dissertations and Theses

Online Format

Full-text PDF files of Stanford dissertations from 1989 to the present are available to Stanford users from Current Research @ Stanford University, a Digital Library of Dissertations and Theses, hosted by UMI.

Print Format

Theses and dissertations for the Chemistry and the Chemical Engineering Departments that were published from the mid-1950’s are located in the Swain Library. Earlier theses are located in the Stanford Auxiliary Library.

Theses are searchable by author, title, primary faculty advisor, department, and year in Socrates. Although theses are assigned the call number 3781, they are shelved alphabetically — first by primary faculty advisor and then by author — in the back reading room of the Swain Library. Theses in other libraries on campus are shelved by author.

For example, to locate theses from the Chemistry Department:

Go to Socrates
On the Simple Search form, select the Keyword search type
Enter terms: thesis stanford chemistry
Select library: Chemistry & Chemical Engineering Library [Swain]
Click on Search Everything button

Search Tip: if you put the above search strategy into the Combined Search form, you can sort the results.

To see theses for a primary faculty advisor:

Go to Socrates
On the Simple Search form, select Browse as search type
Enter “last name, first name middle initial” of faculty member, e.g.
- Waymouth, Robert M
Click on Author button
View results and choose entry that has Advisor added after name

Note: Swain has added advisor information for virtually all theses from the Stanford Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Departments, regardless of where they are shelved. Faculty advisor name is available for other Stanford departments from 1999 to present. Advisor information was added to Dissertation Abstracts International (DAI) (see below) beginning in 1989.

Theses and Dissertations from Other Institutions

Dissertation Abstracts International indexes virtually all doctoral dissertations accepted by United States and Canadian institutions since 1861. Selected masters theses are represented after 1962 with abstracts available after 1988. Some dissertations granted by universities outside of North America may be included. The file is updated monthly, though lag time from when a dissertation is accepted until its inclusion in DAI may be up to a year.

DAI is available online to Stanford users through ProQuest. Abstracts for earlier years are sometimes available in the print version Dissertation Abstracts International which is shelved in Green Library Reference at Z5055.U5A53.