Starting with the 2001 incoming class, the University of Florida has required graduate students to submit their master's theses and doctoral dissertations in electronic format (also referred to as Electronic Theses and Dissertations, or ETDs). The theses and dissertations collection is part of the Institutional Repository at the University of Florida (IR@UF), a service provided by the George A. Smathers Libraries.
Alongside the steadily growing number of born-digital ETDs, the Smathers Libraries are running a long-term digitization project that began with bound dissertations and will eventually move on to master's theses. As of 2025-07-11, the dissertations phase is 92.6% complete, with just over a thousand titles left to digitize. The Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Scanning (RTDS) project also offers free digitization upon request. We can prioritize work on a dissertation and we can rush-process a master's thesis and make it available behind the UF firewall. Please contact us at IRManager@uflib.ufl.edu if you need a digital version of a bound thesis or a yet-to-be digitized dissertation.
The IR@UF also hosts non-thesis terminal projects by graduate students. These projects fall outside the normal processing of the Graduate School, and the Smathers Libraries work directly with colleges and departments to load these items. The Smathers Libraries work directly with undergraduates and some bachelor's degree programs to add theses and other culminating projects to the Honors theses and projects collection.
The Smathers Libraries are happy to assist to you with developing your thesis, dissertation, or other terminal project. Our services include:
The Institutional Repository at the University of Florida (IR@UF), a service provided by the George A. Smathers Libraries, brings together the scholarly, research, and creative works of our academic community. In addition to offering a central collection location for materials, the IR@UF provides long-term preservation, enables worldwide dissemination, and encourages the development of new projects and partnerships. All scholarly works – including articles (pre-prints, post-prints, or published articles as permitted by the publishing agreement), books, book chapters, conference presentations, data sets, digital research files, and more – are welcome in the IR@UF. The IR@UF also provides access to historical materials from the University Archives, inviting explorations of the history, nature, and culture of the University of Florida.
The Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida acquire, manage, and preserve digital resources so they remain accessible to patrons over the long term. Certain limitations may be placed on access due to legal, donor and/or other reasons, but, in general, in so far as possible, the Smathers Libraries endeavor to make digital resources accessible to all users.
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