Online Access to full-text of German Dissertations

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB) and other institutions have made a number of dissertations and other academic publications on a wide variety of subjects FREELY AVAILABLE.

The DNB Catalog has more than 44,000 dissertations and Habilitationsschriften from 90 German universities which are freely available. To search exclusively for online dissertations available from the DNB:

• Go to "Erweiterte Suche" in the DNB catalog
• Deselect all the "Materialart" EXCEPT "Online-Ressourcen". These options are toward the bottom.
• Select "Hochschulschriften [hss]" in one of the search pull down menus. And if you want to limit to just dissertations, enter "diss" in the search box.
• Enter search keywords in other search boxes. Broad terms seem to bring out the best results.
• Once in a record, click on "URL" or "persistent identifier" to access full-text. You may need to hunt for the "pdf" icon on some.
• Additional tips are noted in the DNB Catalog's "Hilfe" (Help documentation).
• These instructions in German.

Other databases of German dissertations/academic publications (most freely available).

For help, contact Brian (bvetruba@wustl.edu or 935-4824).