They could include color images, movies and sound. Other advantages are that the EDTs don't take up shelf space and save ILL and circulation staff time in circulating theses and dissertations. They are more widely accessible on the Internet, and there was discussion at the meeting about the greater visibility and use of electronic dissertations and theses. Virginia Tech's ETDs can be searched by keyword or browsed by author and title. Faculty and students both have concerns about copyright and the future publishing of their dissertations in the form of books or articles if the dissertation is available on the Internet.
Students have the option of restricting access to only the campus.
Future changes for ETDs include submission of ETDs in SGML formats. MARC records could be derived from SGML text. Jeff Moyer, from UMI, presented information on UMI's Digital Library Program, and outlined the issues that need to be addressed by institutions considering developing their own digital dissertation project. Phase I of UMI's project is to scan dissertations and convert them to PDF files. Phase II will be to include searchable texts and images.