How does the ETD project relate to UMI?
UMI (now a division of Bell+Howell) is a corporation in Ann Arbor, Michigan that maintains a microform archive of about 1.5 million dissertations, as well as an online service called Dissertation Abstracts. Most dissertations written in the US are submitted to UMI for archiving on microfilm, from which microform or paper copies can be produced. UMI functions as an on-demand book publisher that eliminates the editorial process. One of the services they offer is to help students regarding copyright and working with publishers. They accept electronic submissions as well as paper submissions. The latter are scanned in and OCR’ed (optical character recognition). UMI makes available online electronic versions of all works they receive after 1996. Few masters theses are sent to UMI. The ETD initiative aims to handle the hundreds of thousands of theses that UMI does not receive each year. UMI has a representative on the Steering Committee and on the Technical Advisory Committee for the NDLTD.
