Online boost for Islamic studies (UK)

Researchers and librarians working in Islamic Studies will now for the first time have online access to nearly 1000 Ph.D theses in the subject, spanning over ten years. JISC, The Academy and The British Library have combined their resources to bring together Islamic Studies theses from universities across the UK and Ireland. Up until now this wealth of knowledge has been dispersed across 97 universities and has only been accessible through individual academic libraries and archives. The collection represents nearly half of the 2000 Islamic Studies Ph.Ds written between 1997 and 2006. This diverse collection, which has been put online by the British Library via its EThOS electronic theses service, covers fields such as Islamic law, history, politics, finance, anthropology, sociology and gender studies. There are also theses which examine Muslim communities in the UK. Alastair Dunning, JISC digitisation manager, says: "The immediate availability of nearly 1,000 UK Ph.D. theses online not only provides added exposure to a significant body of scholarship in all branches of Islamic Studies, but helps bring the work of many early-career researchers to a wider audience"