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Is there a way to search all openly published theses online?

Maybe there is a way for Google Scholar to ignore other types of articles?

I am aware of SCOPUS and Web of Knowledge, but unfortunately I do not have access to these services.

Edit: I talked to my librarian and we found a service called EThOS and additionally a service called openthesis. Openthesis requires people to upload submissions, which would cover nowhere near as many as Google has indexed. EthOS is for the UK only.

William
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    Why would you want to search ALL theses? It's kind of like saying, "Is there a way to search all magazines online?" – Irwin Apr 09 '13 at 00:19
  • @Irwin forgive me, I don't understand what you mean. I would like to limit to only theses. From my understanding Google Scholar indexes all types of articles, but I am looking to only search theses. – William Apr 09 '13 at 00:26
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    What sort of information are you looking for? If you want to learn something, I'm not sure why you would only want to learn it from a thesis (as opposed to journal papers covering the same material), and the same holds for finding out whether an idea is already known. If you are looking for a specific thesis, then that's a different question from searching through all theses. If what you are trying to find out is about theses specifically (e.g., what is the length of an average history thesis), then it's enough to have a representative sample rather than a complete list. – Anonymous Mathematician Apr 09 '13 at 00:51
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    So how did your university librarian answer this question? (You did ask your librarian, didn't you?) – JeffE Apr 09 '13 at 04:54
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    What @Irwin was hinting at was that you would probably want to narrow it by subject/field. If you are looking for a thesis in anthropology, you don't want a service/engine that will also peruse/return theses in molecular biology – Ben Norris Apr 09 '13 at 10:43
  • +1 @BenNorris In my undergrad days I once did a ProQuest search with relatively poorly chosen keywords (for lack of knowing any better). I was trying to do some research on Baudelaire, and ended up with a large number of theses in biology and allied fields. – Willie Wong Apr 09 '13 at 10:53
  • @BenNorris couldn't you simply use keywords to get around this issue? Ultimately, It will be a lot easier to narrow my searches then it will be for me to broaden them. – William Apr 10 '13 at 00:36
  • @Liam I don't mean to disappoint you. The question Use Google scholar only for open access journals would tell you that you'll have hard time to find only open access articles. Not to mention theses. – Nobody Apr 10 '13 at 06:04

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The only thing I can think of given the lack of other details is this They claim to be "the world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses." While that is not "ALL", it certainly is "MOST"?

Shion
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Check to see the list of sites that are comprehensive: https://www.netvibes.com/ircnigeria#FREE_Virtual_Libraries

One of them, Global ETD Search http://search.ndltd.org/ as at today has 5,382,984 electronic theses and dissertations contained in the NDLTD archive

Samuel A. Eyitayo
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