ProQuest Harvesting Option for ETD Submittal: Providing Student’s Choice while Keeping the Local Workflow

The following presentation discusses a mid-size academic library’s recent experience of using the ProQuest Harvesting option to deposit ETDs into the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database (PQDT.) In this less commonly known approach, students submit ETDs first to the university’s institutional repository (IR), where they get cataloged in the library, to be later harvested by the ProQuest system if the students decide. The ProQuest Harvesting method differs from the first one in that management and processing of ETDs is kept in-house while students are given the final choice as to whether to have their work available through the PQDT.

The process was adopted by the University of North Florida (UNF) in 2019 as a way to increase the visibility and discoverability of the institution’s graduate ETDs. In addition to reaching out to a larger audience, this method does not compromise on the students’ choice of posting to ProQuest nor the local established metadata standards.

The presentation will explain the ProQuest Harvesting option in more detail, the rationale behind its adoption, obstacles faced, lessons learned, and the pros and cons of its implementation. Institutions interested in making their ETDs available through the ProQuest database without having to use the ETD Administrator tool nor ceasing their locally established metadata workflows could benefit from this presentation.