Tag Archives: University of Edinburgh

Tom Kibble’s Thesis digitised and made available online

Picture of Tom Kibble

Professor Kibble is currently an Emeritus Professor at Imperial College London

During the summer graduations Tom Kibble will receive an Honorary Degree from the School of Physics & Astronomy for this work in Theoretical Physics. An Edinburgh graduate, Kibble contributed to the discovery of both the Higgs mechanism and the Higgs boson.

scanned image of handwritten formulas included in the thesis

All of the formulas in the the thesis were handwritten.

Ahead of the graduation ceremony in July the School requested the digitisation of his 1958 Thesis on Quantum Field Theory. As with all of our thesis scans the digitised copy will shortly be made available on ERA. In the meantime, the School of Physics & Astronomy will be using it for an exhibition on Kibble to coincide with the conferment of his honorary degree.

Maria O’Hara, Library Annexe Assistant

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Edinburgh physician’s thesis digitised for inclusion in Japanese Museum Exhibit

unedited image of a scanned page

The Carbon Pages were so thin a sheet of paper had to be placed behind each page before it was scanned

Earlier this year a digital copy of the 1909 thesis of Scottish born anthropologist and physician Dr Neil Gordon Munro was ordered by a museum in Japan. The digitised work will be included in an exhibition at the Yokohama History Museum in the city where Munro lived and worked as director of the General Hospital for much of his career.

The thesis was challenging to digitise as much of it was typed on thin, see-though carbon paper. Many of the pages had become wrinkled with age and some were handwritten.

As the University of Edinburgh begins exploring distance learning tools and deploying courses via Coursera this thesis, submitted from Japan, demonstrates the Universities rich yet largely invisible history of distance learning.

For a closer look at the completed digital copy on ERA go to: http://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/6685

Maria O’Hara, Library Annexe Assistant

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Edinburgh University introduces new Thesis Digitisation Service

Staff member using the Bookscanner at the Library Annexe

Charlie demonstrates our beautiful scanner.

In October 2012 the Library Annexe began operating a new Thesis Scanning Service. The service has proved popular with theses covering topics from historical re-enactment to earthquakes. And if anyone is fluent in Arabic and can tell us what Al-Hajeri’s (2007) 1200 page thesis is about – let us know!

Once scanned, a digital copy of the thesis is made available on the university’s institutional repository ERA where they are already seeing increased usage. The eventual aim is to make the entire thesis collection available online.

For more information on the service visit the Thesis Scanning Service webpage and to find out more about the University’s online repository check out the research already available on ERA.

Maria O’Hara, Library Annexe Assistant

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