Over the past three years we have completed our project to digitize our graduate students’ final theses and dissertations. 2018 marks the first year where all our legacy works have been uploaded to Deep Blue.
The following data includes all uploaded works and download counts as of December 2018.
2018 Downloads
The number of individual works downloaded each month on 2018.The total number of downloads that occurred each month.
Deep Blue by the Numbers
Total number digitized works: 757
Works downloaded at least once: 448 (59%)
Total downloads: 114,329
Open Access works: 345 (46%)
Open Access works downloaded at least once: 345 (100%)
Open Access downloads: 114,052 (99.8%)
Works accessible only on UM campuses: 412 (54%)
Works accessible only on UM campuses downloaded at least once: 103 (25%)
On campus downloads: 277 (0.2%)
Yearly Growth
The total number of works in Deep Blue over the past three years.The number of total individual works downloaded, comparing works that are open access and works that are accessible only on campus.The total numbers of downloads over the past three years. Comparing works openly accessible and those available only on campus.
Top 10 Downloaded Theses
The download amounts in the following list reflect the all time totals, not just those downloads that occurred in 2018.
Our project to digitize the legacy collection of UM-Flint’s graduate theses and dissertations has come to its end.
Since our last update, 292 theses were deposited in Deep Blue in May. They were a mixture of legacy theses (dating from 1980 – 1995) and recent graduates’ work. We are currently in the final stages of record clean-up and author contacting.
Going forward we will continue to deposit newly authored works by our growing number of graduate students. We will also continue to track the number of Deep Blue downloads.
Deep Blue by the Numbers
Only the download data through April 2018 were available, the following numbers are based on that data.
452 theses have been added to Deep Blue from July 2015 to April 2018. (The May 2018 deposit brings the total number of digitized theses to 744).
292 of the 452 theses (65%) have been downloaded at least once.
46,081 downloads have occurred since July 2015.
208 of the 452 theses (46%) are designated as open access.
206 of the 208 openly accessible theses (99%) have been downloaded at least once.
244 of the 452 theses (54%) are only accessible on UM campuses.
86 of the 244 on campus theses (21%) have been downloaded at least once.
45,888 of the 46,081 total downloads (99.6%) were for the openly accessible theses.
193 of the 46,081 total downloads (0.4%) were for the theses only accessible on UM campuses.
2018 Downloads
The number of individual theses downloaded from January to April 2018.
The total number of downloads from January to April 2018.
We have continued to track how many times the theses have been downloaded from Deep Blue, the University of Michigan’s institutional repository. The following information is a break down of some of the statistics.
Deep Blue by the Numbers
452 theses have been added to Deep Blue from July 2015 to December 2017.
285 of the 452 theses (63%) have been downloaded at least once.
26,494 downloads have occurred since July 2015.
204 of the 452 theses (45%) are designated as open access.
203 of the 204 openly accessible theses (99%) have been downloaded at least once.
248 of the 452 theses (55%) are only accessible on UM campuses.
82 of the 248 on campus theses (26%) have been downloaded at least once.
26,322 of the 26,494 total downloads (99%) were for the openly accessible theses.
172 of the 26,494 total downloads (1%) were for the theses only accessible on UM campuses.
Deep Blue in 2017
A chart of the number of individual theses downloaded monthly in 2017. Click to enlarge.A chart of the total number monthly of downloads in 2017. Click to enlarge
Comparing 2016 to 2017
2016
2017
Theses Digitized
388
452
On Campus Only Theses
265
248
Open Access Theses
123
204
Downloads
3,227
23,267
On Campus Downloads
91
88
Open Access Downloads
3,136
23,179
A chart comparing the total number of downloads in 2016 and 2017. Click to enlarge.
Beginning in 2015, the Frances Willson Thompson Library has taken steps to preserve and make more accessible UM-Flint’s graduate theses and dissertations.
Since our last update we have continued to work on the project by adding theses to Deep Blue as students graduate and by reaching out to the remaining authors. We have now contacted all the authors for whom we were able to find contact information. In the end, we sent out over 700 letters asking for authors’ permission to allow the full text of their work to be made available to a larger audience than the three UM campuses.
We have also continued to track how many times the theses have been downloaded from Deep Blue, the University of Michigan’s institutional repository.
Deep Blue by the Numbers
411 theses have been added to Deep Blue between July 2015 and June 2017; the bulk of the theses (375) were added in May 2016.
239 theses (58% of the 411) have been downloaded at least once.
10,901 downloads have occurred since July 2015 when the first few theses were added.
184 of the 411 theses (45%) are designated as open access, meaning they are freely available to anyone on the internet through Deep Blue and search engines, like Google Scholar.
179 of the 184 openly accessible theses (97%) have been downloaded at least once.
60 of the 227 theses (26%) that are only accessible on UM campuses have been downloaded at least once; only 4 of these theses have been downloaded more than five times.
10,772 of the 10,901 total downloads (99%) were for the openly accessible theses.
129 of the 10,901 total downloads (1%) were for the theses only accessible on UM campuses.
Charting Deep Blue
A chart of the number of individual theses downloaded monthly from May 2016 to June 2017. Click to enlarge.A chart of the total number of downloads from May 2016 to June 2017. Click to enlargeA chart comparing the number of theses downloaded from May – December 2016 (8 months) and January – June 2017 (6 months). Click to enlarge.
In 2016 the Frances Willson Thompson Library took steps to preserve and make more accessible UM-Flint’s graduate student theses and dissertations.
Since our last update we have continued to work on the project and track how many times the theses have been downloaded from Deep Blue, the University of Michigan’s institutional repository. We also helped Graduate Programs set up a work flow to capture newly submitted theses digitally and make them available to a wider scholarly audience more quickly. The process was implemented in the Fall 2016 semester and so far ten theses have been successfully submitted this way.
Deep Blue By the Numbers
391 theses were added to Deep Blue between July 2015 and December 2016.
159 theses (41% of the 391) have been downloaded at least once.
3,223 total downloads, half of which were downloaded between October to December of 2016.
123 of the 159 theses (77%) are designated as open access, meaning they are freely available to anyone on the internet through search engines like Google Scholar.
119 of the 123 openly accessible theses (96%) have been downloaded at least once; and all of the top ten downloaded theses are open access.
3,134 of the 3,223 total downloads (97%) are for the openly accessible theses.
A chart of the total number of downloads from July 2015 to December 2016.
In 2017 we are continuing the project by reaching out to the remaining authors and preparing the second batch of theses for digitization, which we hope will take place later this year.
If you have any questions about this project, please contact Liz Svoboda at esvoboda@umflint.edu.
For the past year, the Frances Willson Thompson Library has partnered with the UM-Flint Office of Graduate Programs, UM Library’s Deep Blue, and database provider ProQuest to digitize the graduate theses of the University of Michigan – Flint.
The library’s collection of UM-Flint graduate theses.
(Click on any image to enlarge.)
A quick recap: in December 2015, we sent 375 theses to be digitized by ProQuest and in May 2016 we uploaded them into Deep Blue.
While the theses were being digitized we have been contacting the authors for decisions on how their work should be distributed through both ProQuest’s databases and Deep Blue.
Since the original news story was published on 25 April 2015, we have gotten a wonderful response from our authors. Of the almost 400 authors that have been contacted, 190 have responded with their decisions on how their work will be shared with the larger scholarly community.
Most authors have decided to allow the full text of their work to be available in ProQuest’s Dissertations & Theses Global database, a major repository of graduate work from around the world (to which we provide access to current UM-Flint affiliates) and to be openly accessible through Deep Blue, the University of Michigan’s institutional repository.
Mr. Bradley’s donation to the library.
One interesting outcome of the project, has been an addition to the library’s collection by one of our alumni. Edwin Bradley, M.L.S. 2001 and M.A. 2012, is the curator of film at the Flint Institute of Arts. After being contacted about his 2001 M.L.S. Master’s thesis American Film Short Subjects and the Industry’s Transition to Sound, Mr. Bradley informed us that he turned his research for the thesis into a book: The First Hollywood Sound Shorts, 1926 – 1931.
A book reviewer from CHOICE magazine, a leading source for book reviews that librarians and other academics rely on, said this about the book:
“Bradley’s well-researched compendium describes and puts into context this important and somewhat forgotten era of film history. In the late 1920s, as movies began to talk (or squeak, screech, and otherwise express themselves orally), the film industry was faced with producing products that could quench the film-going public’s thirst for the new medium… One may draw a comparison between the early sound era and today’s world of the Internet/reality TV and find that in media and pop culture, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Then as now, there was a diverse audience with a huge appetite for entertainment and a nascent industry looking to make a quick buck by fulfilling the fickle public’s need for entertainment… Summing Up: Highly recommended.” (Dutka, 2005).
Mr. Bradley has donated a copy of his book to the Frances Willson Thompson Library and it is available for check out.
Currently, the library is working with Graduate Programs to digitally capture the theses of our most recent graduates and to contact the remaining authors.
Later this year, the Library plans to digitize the other half of the theses, most dating from the 1980s to the mid-1990s.
If you have any questions about this project, please contact Liz Svoboda at esvoboda@umflint.edu.
Dutka, A. J. (2005). The first Hollywood sound shorts, 1926-1931. Choice, 43(3), 446.
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