Date:         Fri, 15 Oct 2004 16:08:10 -0300
Reply-To:     Gabriela Ortuzar <[log in to unmask]>
Sender:       etd-l Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
From:         Gabriela Ortuzar <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Electronic Theses Portal
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed

Dear ETD-L@LISTSERV Members,

I would like to introduce our Electronic Theses
Portal  :   http://www.cybertesis.net

This Portal, developed by the University of Chile (Information Services &
Library System), provides an easily accessible tool to fulltext electronic
theses published by different universities.    By means of the use of OAI
protocol (Open Archives Initiative) as a service provider, is possible to
consult simultaneously in the servers of 27 universities, allowing the
access to  more than 27.000 thesis in full text.

Cybertesis.NET uses ARC as a service provider, developed by the Old
Dominion University (http://dlib.cs.odu.edu ).   We modify the source code
of some Java files to obtain:
- search by countries and continents
- browse by universities, year and countries.
- author-titles display
- number of results
- a new graphic design

The metadata collected are stored in a  MySQL database.  The scripts of
consultation and display are developed in Perl, although also PHP can be used.

Besides,  our university has implemented an Electronic Thesis Publication
Program (Cyberdocs) developed by the Universé de Montréal and the
Université de Lyon.  Our university has adapted these platform,
implementing the Open Archives Initiative protocol and creating all the
documentation in Spanish language.

The advance of our university's electronic project and the expertise that
we have developed, allowed us to transfer the guidelines and a set of tools
to 18 others Latin-American universities. The year 2003 we organized the
first workshop with the support of UNESCO and the Open Society Institute,
and we continue this year with this initiative.

Regards,


-------------------
Gabriela Ortuzar
Directora
SISIB. Sistema de Servicios de Informacion y Bibliotecas
Universidad de Chile
Tel 56-2 6782584 - Fax 56-2 6782574
http://www.uchile.cl
http://www.uchile.cl/sisib