Many universities make dissertations and theses available electronically. For older theses that are not electronic, the Library can often borrow a copy. Consider also looking for articles and books the author has created from dissertation and thesis research.
We do not access to the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. About half of US theses are locked up there. Fortunately, the other half are fairly open and accessible.
WorldCat covers all subjects and includes records for over 95 million items held in thousands of libraries throughout the United States and Europe. Search by keyword, author, or title.
Look for ☐ Thesis/dissertation on the left column of results.
Click on that box to get a (usually) much smaller number of results. (Of course, for some searches, there might not be any theses or dissertations. In that case, you will not see a box for Thesis/dissertation.)
Some authors publish their dissertations as articles or books. The titles may be different from the original title. Consider searching for those too, using the author's name.
Starting in 2010, all Appalachian State University masters theses and doctoral dissertations are available electronically through NC DOCKS. Google crawls NC DOCKS, so they are available through Google Web searches also. You can also still find them through the Library Catalog.
