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In early November, I was invited to join the newly-created ProQuest International Dissertations and Theses Advisory Board, which I readily accepted. As some of you may know, Wake Forest contributes our Master’s theses and doctoral dissertations to the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Database (PQDT), and use the ProQuest/UMI ETD Administrator system to manage student submissions of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) to both PQDT and WakeSpace. As ETDs bridge the purview of the Graduate School and the library, I am the lead administrator for our ETD program at the University, hence my invitation to join the Advisory Board.

Last Wednesday through Friday found me attending the Board’s first in-person meeting at ProQuest (PQ) headquarters in Ann Arbor, MI. (And no, December is not an optimal time to visit Michigan, but at least it was in the mid-30s and there was no snow. No offense to any native Michiganders in ZSR for knocking a visit to your home state, although I’m guessing you agree!) Those who gathered in A2 (as Lynn has taught me to call Ann Arbor in shorthand) were board members from across the US and UK; our one current member from Taiwan was unable to attend, and additional members from Southeast Asia and Europe are still being recruited. I knew one board member and one PQ representative previously, and a few others by name/reputation.

I’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement with PQ, so I am unable to share much from our time. But I can say that this board membership promises to be one of the most rewarding professional activities I’ve pursued to date, and that PQ has recruited a knowledgeable and diverse board. And I can also say that the highlight of the meeting was our Thursday afternoon tour of the PQ digitization and microfilm facility. They have digitization equipment and set-ups that would make many in ZSR weep with incredulity and envy. Our tour included the on-site vault, which houses approximately 30,000 canisters, each containing 50 or so rolls of microfilmed theses and dissertations. And the off-site vault at Iron Mountain, in Pennsylvania, is co-located with the CIA, NSA, and Disney vaults, so there is no need to worry about archival storage for microfilms of our nation’s (and Wake’s) ETDs – they are well-cared for!