Brown makes no requirement for deposit or for printing. Harvard provides that one copy either printed or written must be deposited in the library. Yale requires that the "thesis must be deposited at the library for public inspection not later than May 1st" of the year in which the candidate expects to receive the degree.
Of these universities two only, Brown and California, print the titles of theses in the university catalog.
The foregoing statements are taken from the annual catalogs for 1899-1900 of the universities named, except in the case of Pennsylvania, where the statement made in the catalog is supplemented from a letter received from the Dean.
Although I presumed that most of the copies deposited in the libraries of the universities were used for exchange, I wrote to the librarians of those universities which require the deposit of a number of printed copies, making inquiry regarding their systems of exchange and provisions for the sale of copies not exchanged. I received replies from almost all. [These letters were read, the common condition being shown to be that most of the copies received by the libraries were exchanged with foreign institutions and other American universities. Varying conditions ranging from a refusal to sell any copies to a free distribution of copies not exchanged, was found to exist with regard to sale of theses by the libraries.]
It will be seen from these replies that, if a library does not happen to be on the exchange list of the university in which a thesis is written, and if the thesis is not printed in some journal or in the proceedings of some learned society, such a library stands very little chance either of learning of the publication of a thesis or of procuring it from the author or from the university. That this is not much of an affliction in most cases I cheerfully admit. Still the small colleges which deliberately refuse to attempt graduate work—and, be it said to their honor, there are not a few of these—and the large reference libraries which do not publish, have as much need of certain theses as the large universities, and they have no means of getting them easily.
It appears to me, and I trust to you, that, if our American dissertations are worth anything, if they are valuable enough to preserve, if they are real contributions to knowledge—and I believe that they are all of these—then it is worth while to secure the publication of some list which will tell librarians and specialists where to go to get copies, either from the author or from the university. It should not be difficult to secure co-operation in this matter. The number of theses printed and deposited in any one university in any one year is not large, and it certainly would not be a burden of alarming proportions to send titles to some central bureau. The difficulty will be to secure an editor and the funds for publishing the list. It would seem to me that some one of the large institutions whose libraries publish bulletins and other matter, or possibly the Library of Congress might assume the expense as a matter of patriotic service to learning in the United States. And it might not be out of place for this section, should it care to follow up the matter, to enter into communication with them on the subject. It might be also, that some enterprising publisher would be glad to undertake the task of both editing and publishing, if it could be shown him that he would thus do a favor to American libraries.
One final word should be said before closing. The inevitable delays incident to the publication of such a list would be more than offset by the delays in publishing theses. Many a man is called "Doctor" who has never received his diploma for that degree because his thesis remains unpublished. The laxity in this matter in some quarters is very great. It may be that such a publication of titles as I have proposed might perceptibly hasten the publication of theses.
[OPPORTUNITIES.]
By Gratia Countryman, Minneapolis (Minn.) Public Library.