Digitization of Theses and Dissertations in Academic Libraries of Sri Lanka: A Current Statues

With the rapid development of Information Communication Technology (ICT), the libraries changed their nature of services from traditional to modern. Therefore, users have online access to millions of information today. Sri Lankan national university libraries are also moving towards the digital information repository system to provide access to efficient e-resources. These e-resources are enriched with e-books, theses and dissertations, research publications, preprints, conference proceedings. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) are reflected as a first target form of above e-resources. Because ETDs are providing 365 days of access to current research outputs. Therefore, this research tends to find out the several research questions such as availability of ETDs, Mode received, types of ETDs, authority approval, policies and procedures, method of access, fund allocations as well as associated problems of ETDs. The research was carried out by selecting Sri Lankan national university libraries and data was collected via a structured online questionnaire while observing the relevant ETD websites. This study found that the majority of Sri Lankan University libraries moving towards digitizing Theses and Dissertations. Three national university libraries have not introduced ETD services at the present. However, they are willing to introduce the same service in the near future. Copyright issues and lack of professional staff, as well as lack of training opportunities, identified as problems to maintain efficient ETD services in the Sri Lankan university library sector.