Thesis Research in Architecture: Finding theses

1. Go to the Advanced Search.
2. Select Theses & Dissertations as the Resource Type.
3. Search University of Waterloo. School of Architecture. exactly as the Author/Creator, and select is (exact) from the search box pull-down menus.
4. Add some search terms. Only theses from 2016 onwards have Library of Congress subject headings. In OMNI you can add as many new search lines as you need.
5. Try adding thes?s to exclude other types of publications affiliated with the School of Architecture.
6. Hit the Search button to execute your search.
7. You can resort by Date-newest to push Bachelor theses results to the bottom

Prior to 2006 electronic submission was optional at the University of Waterloo. Theses may be located in:

Many theses are available electronically in full text from other institutions. 

For those that aren't, some of them may be available through InterLibrary Loan. Please contact the Architecture Librarian first--I may be able to negotiate for you. Others can be purchased. See the following links for details:

Open Access Institutional Repositories

Like the University of Waterloo' s UWSpace, many universities around the world have open access institutional repositories where you can search and access theses. Here are some resources for finding individual repositories to search (in addition to the search tools below):

International

Africa

Americas

Asia

Europe

Oceania

UWSpace is the University of Waterloo's open access institutional repository for research and scholarship. All theses and dissertations published from October 2006 onwards, including those from the School of Architecture, can be found in UWSpace. All theses are publicly accessible unless embargoed.

NOTE: Occasionally authors will chose to limit access or embargo their thesis for a variety of reasons, pending patents, and publisher contracts. If the thesis you want to access is unavailable, you can request a copy directly from the author by logging into UWSpace using your WatIM credentials. There is NO guarantee the author will oblige your request.

You can also search UW Space for theses, but it is less robust than using the library catalogue.

1. To find Master of Architecture theses, click on the Engineering (Faculty of) link under the Communities in UWSpace heading on the homepage. Browse and discovery tools are available in right hand side. You can search all of UWSpace in the search box located in the upper right-hand corner.

2. Then click on Architecture under the Collections in this community heading. Notice that you now have the option to search all of UWSpace or just Engineering theses in the search box in the upper right-hand corner.

3. Under the Browse by options, you will find a search box that allows you to search with the collection. Boolean operators work in search box.

Please note, theses in UWSpace do not have Library of Congress subject headings. Subjects in this case are really more like keywords and lack true vocabulary control. The default result list is by deposit date into the repository, but you can change that to browse by issue date, alphabetical by author author(s) or title… et cetera.

4. After executing a search within the Architecture collection the default sorting for results list is by relevance, i.e. their closeness to your original search term(s). To see the full record and access a digital copy of a thesis manuscript, click on the thesis title. If you want to further refine your results at this point, click on Show Advanced Filters.

5. Click on link labeled View/ Open access and download a PDF copy. Every thesis is assigned a permanent URL which you can save or bookmark.