American Doctoral Dissertations

American Doctoral Dissertations (ADD) is an annual hardcover publication by University Microfilms International (UMI; Ann Arbor, Michigan) for the Association of Research Libraries. As a reference tool, the ADD provides citations to nearly all dissertations written in a given academic year within the United States. In addition to an author index, it provides full bibliographic citations for each dissertation, grouped by subject and by institution. Citations include title of the dissertation, name of the author, degree awarded, awarding institution, year of completion, and UMI order number.

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Systematic listing of doctoral dissertations in the United States was begun by the Library of Congress in 1912 in an annual publication titled List of American Doctoral Dissertations Printed, which was discontinued in 1938. Doctoral Dissertations AcceptedbyAmericanUniversities (1933/34–1955/56) and the Index to American Doctoral Dissertations (1955/56–1963/64) were two subsequent annual publications generated by the H. W. Wilson Company. The ADD was introduced in 1934 by Xerox University Microfilms.

The ADD is compiled from the ProQuest Information and Learning database as well as information obtained directly from American universities. The ADD differs from Dissertation Abstracts International (DAI) in that it does not include abstracts for each dissertation and does not cover international dissertations. However, the ADD is more comprehensive than the DAI because the ADD includes titles of unpublished dissertations from the ProQuest database.

Currently, the most enhanced version of the ADD and the DAI is ProQuest Digital Dissertations, which is a database of more than 2 million entries for doctoral dissertations and master's theses submitted from more than 1,000 universities and covering the years 1861 to date. ProQuest Digital Dissertations provides the citation, abstract, and first 24 pages of dissertations submitted to UMI within the preceding 2 years. Full versions of these manuscripts and older dissertations may be obtained from UMI in a variety of formats for a fee. Many academic institutions in the United States provide free access to this database for their faculty, staff, and students.