Bibliographical data of PhD records – a source for prosopography of scientific communities

For details contact dr. Birutė Railienė, the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, b.railiene@gmail.com

This project is a survey of bibliographical indexes of dissertations in Lithuania in certain fields during the periods 1793 to 1842, 1940 to 1993, and 1945 to 1990. It consists of about 8000 dissertation records that are currently fragmented and not satisfactory for a comprehensive prosopographic mapping of scholarly communities.

This project will review the tradition and style of electronic theses and dissertations (ETD), the current practice of cataloguing and metadata creation, and the obstacles for prosopographical surveys and data mining based on the current catalogues and databases of ETDs.

The Commission on Bibliography and Documentation (CBD) strives to foster the development and utilisation of bibliographic and archival documentation that will assist historians in their study of science and technology. It relies on professional advice and advocacy from specialists in bibliography and archives. The CBD desires to establish standards of documentation for theses.

Specifically, it advocates establishing mandatory documentation of research advising/supervising. A dissertation provides data on new knowledge but also encodes important scientometric information. Research advising is one of forms of scholarly interaction between two scholars (in addition to co-authorship and citation). PhD thesis records expose scientific relationships at both the personal and institutional levels.

Keywords: Prosopography; Theses; Dissertations; Scientific communities