bodleian library thesis deposit

Deposit your research in ORA

There are two routes of deposit to ORA. The main route of deposit for publications, grey literature (such as working papers and reports), and research data is via Symplectic Elements, which is also the chosen route for Oxford academics to ‘Act on Acceptance’. The other deposit route is for theses only.

For ‘Act on Acceptance’ and publications such as journal articles, conference papers, book chapters, reports, working papers, etc.

• Guidance on depositing research

For research theses (e.g. D.Phil., M.Litt. & M.Sc. by Research) – deposit of theses is a mandatory requirement for those completing a research degree.

• Guidance on depositing thesis

For any type of digital research data, especially data that underpins publications, or data where the funding body requires archiving and preservation.

• Guidance on depositing data

If you encounter problems trying to make your submission to ORA please contact us and we will arrange an alternative method for the upload of your work to ORA. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Bodleian Digital Library

A bodleian libraries blog.

Launching the new ORA thesis deposit form

A new thesis deposit form for Oxford University Research Archive (ORA) was launched on Wednesday 23 September, f ollowing on from the new article and ORA-Data deposit forms.

This new form is part of a general overhaul of the ORA submission system, dispensing with old forms that were unstable, difficult for depositors to follow and increasingly out of date.

The new form makes the submission process as easy as possible for the depositor, with comprehensive help text available in the form, allowing the depositor to complete their graduation requirement of depositing their Research eThesis to ORA with minimum stress. The new system will be easier for ORA staff to manage deposits, whilst still capturing necessary metadata so that Oxford etheses are easily discoverable, citable and accessible.

Further additions and improvements to the ORA submission system will continue over the coming months.

Thesis deposit can be accessed via the main  ORA website :  just select ‘Deposit’ followed by the Oxford Research Student – ‘thesis’ link. Our  ‘How to deposit’ guide   is available via our LibGuide and the ORA team can be contacted at : [email protected] .

—Sarah Barkla and David Watson

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What do I need to do to submit the Bodleian copy of my thesis?

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Step inside 'Leninka,' Russia's largest and oldest library (PHOTOS)

The Russian State Library, and the monument to Fyodor Dostoyevsky in front of it

The camera clicks cause all eyes in the hall to switch disapprovingly from the reading material in front of them to the photographer – the source of unwelcome noise. “Keep silence” here is as common a sign as “No smoking” on board a plane.

The moment we show up with our photographic gear, the library supervisors, like hawks, swoop on us from all sides, demanding to see our permission to take photos (thankfully, we have it on us). With custodians such as these, the largest book collection in Russia need never fear for its security .

Some history

Initially, the library collection was formed from the personal collection of manuscripts and rare books of Count Nikolai Rumyantsev, a Russian statesman. By personal order of Nicholas I, the Rumyantsev Museum was founded in St Petersburg in 1828. Over time, however, it could not withstand the competition from other institutions in Russia’s then capital, so the decision was taken to relocate the institution to Moscow. It was assigned one of the most beautiful buildings right outside the Kremlin walls, Pashkov House .

After the 1917 Revolution, the library flourished. The capital followed the library to Moscow, and the Rumyantsev Museum essentially became the country’s main depository of books; a new building and indeed a new book depository were subsequently built for it. Today, the library buildings occupy an entire block. And Pashkov House is also home to a music section, as well as a manuscripts and cartography department .

In Soviet times, the Rumyantsev Museum was renamed the Lenin State Library of the USSR, in whose honor the nearby subway station, opened in 1935, was christened Biblioteka imeni Lenina (Lenin Library). In more recent times, the library shed its Lenin prefix, but by then the name had stuck, and it is still referred to today as the Leninka.

In 2013, a special library department and reading room opened at Moscow’s Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center. It houses the Schneerson Library – a collection of religious and secular literature by Hasidic Jews. Since then, however, the materials in the collection have been completely digitized .

Some modernity

Visiting the library of, say, Oxford University in Britain, one feels the hand of ancient history resting on the shoulder. Likewise, the Leninka plunges the curious visitor into the past, nearer in time, yet still gone. Green halls, cloth-covered tables, lamps – it is embalmed socialism with a human face, and perhaps the best that remains of the lost Soviet empire .

The Leninka is never empty, its cloakroom always buzzing with people. Every second, young women in short skirts and bespectacled professors ascend the main staircase of exquisite beauty. An eccentric fire-red haired lady of indeterminate age, humming something to herself, strides confidently into the music section, clearly a frequenter .

Inside the library are several reading rooms kitted out with computers, as well as endless corridors and recesses with reading desks. The conveyor belt continuously churns out all kinds of volumes and folios from the book depository. Yours truly has time to catch sight of an Italian teach-yourself guide, a book on the basics of accounting, and a rare edition of Boris Pasternak .

For some pilgrims, the library is a near religious experience – a ritual replete with antique books and tables with the old-world scent of wooden cabinets, parquet floors, and history itself hanging in the air. Switched on, the legendary green lamps plunge the room into an atmosphere of wonder .

A smartly dressed elderly gentleman examines a manuscript through a magnifying glass, nearby sits a stern-looking middle-aged woman in glasses, clearly a teacher. Their neighbor is a bearded professor, and one table away a group of students are taking selfies. Other students, Chinese, are diligently studying Russian (making up for time lost on less academic activities).

In the hall with card files, the atmosphere is more relaxed. A pensioner reads freshly pressed magazines so as not to purchase them. At the next table, a man in a tracksuit is solving a crossword puzzle. Is he passing time before catching a train? Or just exercising the grey cells? On the topic of exercise, some even do the physical kind. One visitor, for instance, spreads out a rubber sheet in a remote corridor and does gymnastics, nourishing the mind and body in true Ancient Greek style .

Some numbers

Today, the library houses more than 47 million units of storage in 367 languages, including some rare Oriental ones. In addition to publications (the library receives an obligatory copy of all printed works), there are rare manuscripts, printed versions of visual arts, photo materials, maps, sheet music, periodicals, regulatory acts, military literature, and, of course, literature on the art of librarianship. Here, one can also find every dissertation written in the country since 1951 .

The library has 36 reading rooms open to visitors, and Wi-Fi is near ubiquitous. Around 100,000 new users register annually. Employees offer up an interesting statistic: Every minute the library doors are opened by five visitors.

The Leninka is currently in the process of digitizing its archives. Its electronic library already has 1.3 million documents, not to mention access to remote electronic databases, including those of Cambridge University Press and Springer Publishing, various online library databases, and the JSTOR archive of digitized journals. The full list is available on the Leninka website .

Citizens at least 14 years old of any country can register at the library. And it is absolutely free – all that’s required is a piece of ID (plus passport and visa for those without visa-free entry to Russia) .

The procedure takes no more than ten minutes. You will be photographed and issued a plastic library card. Students often joke that the mugshot on your Leninka card is bound to be the worst you’ve ever had (you can always blame the photographer). That said, these days it’s possible to sign up online .

After registration, you will need to offload your coat and any large bags or rucksacks to the cloakroom. One small bag and a laptop can be taken inside .

The library is open from 9 am to 8 pm every day except Sunday. Be prepared to have to wait for the book you want, perhaps even a few hours while it gets delivered from the book depository. If time is short, you can always order a book and pick it up the next day .

For many a long year, the Leninka had a reputation as a place for meeting one’s better half – a wife or husband from a respectable professorial family. Some visited the library with this specific purpose in mind. If the walls of the Leninka smoking room could talk, they would tell quite a story. For it was here that romantic hopefuls came to chat so as not to violate the hallowed silence of the reading rooms .

In the Oscar-winning movie Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears , the heroine, a provincial student, pines away in the Leninka reading hall, eyeing up any number of suitable matches, before heading into the smoking room, where two young academics simultaneously offer her a light. According to the library supervisors, visitors still ask about the famous smoking room, but alas, it is no longer there – smoking is now prohibited inside the building. But don’t despair, there’s a wonderful canteen instead. If that’s not a place for kindred souls to find each other, what is?

If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material.

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Submitting your thesis to ORA: After deposit

• Eligible degrees
• Requirements
• What to deposit
• Pre-deposit checklist
• Hardcopy thesis submission
• How to deposit
• Open Access
• Pre-publication concerns
• Restricted access to your thesis
• Edited/dissemination copy of your thesis
• Oxford Research Theses and predatory publishers
• Funder/sponsor requirements
• Third party copyright
• Fair dealing
• RightsLink®
• Google Maps/Permissions
• Creative Commons
• Unable to get copyright permissions
• Separate appendix
• Plagiarism concerns
• Information for Supervisors
• Digital preservation
• Visibility of your thesis
• Persistent URLS

This page explains the process that your thesis deposit goes through after submission.

Record creation in ORA

Once you have completed the submission of your thesis to ORA, ORA review staff will be notified of the deposit to the archive. Your submission rests in a review area where ORA review staff check the details of the submission for accuracy and change/enhance information as required. The full text file attachments are also checked at this point to confirm required versions, under examination regulations, have been deposited and that the files are complete with no issues of corruption. 

As a result of this check by ORA review staff there may be some communication required with you as depositor to confirm details, obtain the correct version of full text, etc. 

After this initial review of the submitted information is made and the deposit is seen to be in compliance with exam regulations, ORA staff update your associated student record indicating that you have completed the submission of your thesis to the archive. Student administration use these details to confirm graduation day listings. ORA review staff at this stage also migrate the formdata from your deposit to ORA creating a record page for the work.

Once the record page has been migrated successfully to the public archive ORA review staff will send you an additional email confirming the deposit and provide a citable permanent link to your thesis record page. It is information form this record page that is used to create the subsequent links in SOLO and EthOS. 

The full text file for your thesis will be placed under embargo until Open Access details can be confirmed with you via communication or any embargo periods applied to the work come to term. 

Thesis records created

• Record page in ORA - 'Quick view' Screenshots of how the completed record will look for your thesis record in ORA, with field notes. Additional screenshots of an example record in SOLO and EThoS.

Oxford Research Archive (ORA)

ORA (Oxford University Research Archive)   is the institutional repository for the University of Oxford and is home to the scholarly output of its research members. 

Contact us at:  [email protected] , or via our contact form .

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• Last Updated: Apr 10, 2024 5:00 PM
• URL: https://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/digitaltheses

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Search Oxford Libraries Online (SOLO) is the online catalogue for Oxford University’s libraries, including the Bodleian Libraries and most college and faculty libraries.

What is on SOLO?

You can use SOLO to search:

• the resources of most Oxford University libraries, including books, e-books, articles, databases and media
• materials received by the Bodleian Libraries via electronic legal deposit (eLD)
• research papers and theses deposited in the Oxford Research Archive (ORA)
• the Bodleian Libraries' map collections
• many of the Bodleian Libraries' rare books.

For physical items, SOLO will show live availability information: whether it is available to borrow on a library shelf, or out on loan to another reader.

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Manuscripts, archives and the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera are not listed on SOLO – there are separate catalogues for these. Find out more about the available catalogues and finding aids .

Sign into SOLO

We recommend that you log into SOLO before searching. If you are a member of Oxford University, you will need to log in to access subscription e-resources, as some publishers strictly limit access to members of subscribing institutions.

By signing into SOLO, you will be able to see your personalised borrowing options, including which items are available for you to borrow and how long you can borrow them for.

Your SOLO account

You can use SOLO to manage your library loans. Log into My SOLO to manually renew items you have borrowed or check when they are due back, see items you have requested, and more.

Learn more about signing into SOLO and using your SOLO account .

Guide and help

For more detailed information about how to use SOLO, visit our SOLO guide . To get immediate help during working hours, chat to us via Live Chat (find it on SOLO or at the bottom of this page) or talk to a member of library staff.

Find out more about our z39.50 connection details .

If you have feedback, including questions, comments or requests, or if you notice anything unusual about the information in SOLO, please email [email protected] .