Most Massey doctoral theses as far back as the first in 1948 are now available online, as the Library nears completion of a two year project to digitise all 1400 of them.<\/p>\n
In 2010, the Library initiated a project to retrospectively digitise all of Massey University\u2019s doctoral theses held in the Library, and make them available online through the institutional repository, Massey Research Online (MRO).<\/p>\n
The benefits of digitisation are to provide greater access by making the theses available globally via the internet; demonstrating Massey\u2019s commitment to making publicly funded research freely available; as well as facilitating the preservation of Massey\u2019s unique research.<\/p>\n
All students enrolled for a thesis since 2007 must supply an electronic copy for addition to MRO, while in previous years students had to provide only print copies to the Library.<\/p>\n
So far over 1300 theses have been digitised, among them the first PhD completed at Massey in 1948, by W.A. McGillivray, entitled Studies on carotene metabolism<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n The thesis of Christine Winterbourn, the first woman to graduate with a PhD from Massey in 1968, Lipid metabolism of mammalian erythrocytes with special reference to cellular aging<\/em><\/a>, has also been added to MRO. Professor Winterbourn won the prestigious Rutherford Medal in 2011, New Zealand\u2019s top science and technology award.<\/p>\n