Straipsnyje pristatomas Lietuvos atminties bei kitose institucijose sovietmečiu ir šiais laikais
vykdyto Lietuvos disertacijų kaip dokumentinio mokslo paveldo registravimo ir sklaidos rezultatų tyrimas.
Straipsnio pradžioje, remiantis Lietuvoje ir pasaulyje atliktų bibliometrinių tyrimų rezultatų analize, atskleidžiamas
disertacijų vaidmuo mokslo istorijos tyrimams. Toliau nagrinėjami svarbiausi Lietuvos institucijų
atlikti darbai, registruojant, išsaugant ir skleidžiant informaciją apie Lietuvos mokslininkų disertacijas.
Nagrinėjant informacijos apie disertacijas išteklių – bibliografijos priemonių, informacinių leidinių bei
duomenų bazių – tematiką, chronologinę aprėptį, pateikiamų duomenų išsamumą, siekiama atskleisti šių
išteklių visumos įvairovę ir institucijų indėlį registruojant bei skleidžiant informaciją apie disertacijas. Tyrimo
metu surinkti duomenys apie disertacijas registruojančius spausdintinius išteklius pateikiami statistinėse
lentelėse.
Esminiai žodžiai: Lietuvos disertacijos; disertacijų santraukos; mokslo istorija; atminties institucijos; bibliografijos
rodyklės; duomenų bazės; Lietuvos mokslų akademijos Vrublevskių biblioteka.
The article describes the activities of actualization and dissemination of Lithuanian dissertations as documentary
scholarly heritage, carried out in Lithuanian memory and other institutions during the Soviet period
and today. It reviews the most important works in registering, preserving and disseminating information on
Lithuanian scholarly dissertations carried out by these institutions. The main focus is on one of the key means
of disseminating information – bibliographical indexes and their preparation.
Dissertations and their abstracts are important documents of scholarly heritage with enduring historical and
scientific value. Bibliographic data on dissertations provide valuable information for research into the history
of science and can be useful for studying the activities of a particular scholar or scholarly institution, the state
of research in individual fields and in the country as a whole. In order to preserve and update this valuable
scholarly heritage, the dissertations of Lithuanian scholars are collected and registered in libraries and research
and education institutions. The most complete collection of contemporary dissertations is held in the
Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania.
The most important and comprehensive means of recording data on dissertations are bibliographic indexes.
Information on dissertations is also recorded in bibliographical lists, biographical compendia, handbooks
and surveys. Since 1958, the year when the first dissertation-recording publication came out, a total of five
universal bibliographies (covering all fields of science), eight subject bibliographies (for individual fields of
science), five bibliographic lists and seven other types of reference publications have been produced. Thanks
to the efforts of the major Lithuanian libraries (the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of
Sciences, the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, and the Vilnius University Library), bibliographies
and card catalogues have been used to register dissertations in all fields of science between 1940
and 1990. Dissertations in individual fields of science were registered not only by the libraries (the Wroblewski
Library and the Lithuanian Library of Medicine), but also by higher education institutions, research
institutes, scientific societies and unions. They have produced retrospective bibliographies of dissertations
in almost all scholarly fields (except technology). Most of them list theses defended by post-war Lithuanian
scholars. An exception is the bibliography of medical sciences, which covers dissertations from 1793 to 1977.
Dissertation databases, which began to be created in Lithuania in the late 20th century, took over the role
of bibliographic indexes, expanding the possibilities of data retrieval and dissemination in Lithuania and
worldwide. Three electronic resources (Lithuanian Science Potential, Database of Defended Dissertations
and eLABa ETD) provide both retrospective and current bibliographic information on dissertations, while
eLABa ETD also contains the texts of dissertations and their summaries. The totality of bibliographic tools
and databases recording Lithuanian dissertations not only contributes to the dissemination of the country’s
scholarly results, but also serves as a tool for qualitative and quantitative research into the history of science.
Keywords: Lithuanian dissertations; theses; history of science; memory institutions; bibliographic indexes;
databases; The Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.
