(Déjà vu? This post is a very slight reworking of a post I wrote yesterday for the Graduate Center Library blog.)

They’re here! All Graduate Center dissertations and theses from 2014 (thus far) are now in Graduate Center Academic Works, the Graduate Center’s new open access institutional repository. (Institutional repositories for the other CUNY campuses are coming soon!)

Some of the dissertations and theses are open access (i.e., freely available) now, and the others will become open access at the end of the author’s chosen embargo period (generally six months, one year, or two years).

Browse this incredible batch of intellectual output by department or en masse. Or scan a few of these works (all of them already open access), which I’ve cherry-picked for having especially engaging, curiosity-sparking titles:

• An Equine-Facilitated Prison-Based Program: Human-Horse Relations And Effects On Inmate Emotions And Behaviors by Keren Bachi, Ph.D. in Social Welfare
• The Fight Over John Q: How Labor Won and Lost the Public in Postwar America, 1947-1959 by Rachel Burstein, Ph.D. in History
• Acting Wide Awake: Attention and the Ethics of Emotion by Jacob Davis, Ph.D. in Philosophy
• Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve: The Effects of Conspicuous Compassion on Identity Signaling and Charitable Behavior by Zoe Rogers, Ph.D. in Business
• Clue, Code, Conjure: The Epistemology of American Detective Fiction, 1841-1914 by Jennifer Weiss, Ph.D. in English
• Aging Out of the Spectrum of Cultural Visibility by Darthea M. Miller, M.A. in Liberal Studies
• Backward C inside a Circle: Free Culture in Zines by Alycia Sellie, M.A. in Liberal Studies (and a GC librarian, to boot!)
• The Arena and Stadium Experience: The Individual, the Venue and the Culture Industry by Anthony Paul Sparacino, M.A. in Liberal Studies

The dissertations and theses of October graduates will appear in Academic Works soon. And moving forward, all theses and dissertations will appear shortly after each graduation.

Added benefit of going open access: If a thesis or dissertation (or any other work) is open access in Academic Works, the author will receive monthly readership reports detailing how often the work has been downloaded, what search terms led readers to the work, etc. (And I’ve already heard from 2014 graduates who are surprised and delighted by how much their dissertation or thesis has been downloaded!) So, not only does going open access help you find a broader audience and make a greater impact — it also helps you see and track that impact!