THE FOUNDATION

The Eugene Health and Performance Foundation, incorporated in March 2001 as a 501c3 non-profit foundation, is located in Eugene, Oregon.

GOALS

  1. Teaching Students
  2. Guiding Runners
  3. Coaching Athletes
  4. Sharing Knowledge
  5. Disseminating Research
  6. Conducting Studies

OregonPDF

HISTORY

In 1948, Dr. Harrison Clarke of the University of Oregon began collecting dissertations and theses in subjects related to health and performance. He had these reproduced in microfiche and distributed to university libraries. The collection has been continuously growing and now numbers almost 11,000 original dissertations and theses.

In August 2008, the Eugene Health and Performance Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit organization, was given responsibility for this collection. We are committed to making that research available to researchers around the world, a tradition that began sixty years ago with Dr. Clarke.

SERVICES

We recognize that the new standard for information storage is digital and that microfiche is no longer a convenient or logical solution. To that end we began to convert the fiche to PDF format and developed a new website for our subscribers in August 2008. Students and faculty at subscribing institutions can access the website and the entire collection through their library and can:

  • Search and download any converted document in our collection.
  • Request the conversion of any document that has yet to be converted; we will convert and make that document available to the user within 24 hours.
  • In the near future, upload new dissertations and theses for inclusion in the collection.

We now have 10,688 dissertations and theses in our collection. The major topic headings are:

  • HE — Health and Health Education (903)
  • PE — Physical Education and Athletics (4874)
  • PH — Physiology and Exercise Epidemiology (1855)
  • PSY — Sports Psychology (2451)
  • RC — Recreation and Leisure (605)

ACTIVITY REPORT AUGUST 2008-2009

We have been pleased with the response to our 24-hour conversion policy. We promised to do our best to convert any dissertation/thesis that was not already in PDF format within 24 hours of receipt of the request. With very few exceptions we have done that. Since August, 2008 we have converted nearly 800 requested dissertations/theses from fiche to PDF.

We have also had a firm in Indiana convert all dissertations/theses from 1998 to 2002 to PDF. We are about one-half of the way to having all documents in our collection converted to PDF. By the end of November all of the collection from 1998-2009 will have been converted to PDF.

Between August 1, 2008 and July 31, 2009 we have had 10,694 visits to our website. 59,347 pages were visited and we estimate that nearly 1600 documents were downloaded.

Our goal is to add 200 new dissertations/theses each year. We have added 56 new dissertations or theses since August 2008. The usual goal of 200 was slowed because of the need to create, among other things, a new website this year.

A yearly subscription costs $1,500.00. The average page length of a dissertation/thesis is 167.6 pages. The cost to non-subscribers is $0.20 per page. The average cost would then be $33.53 per document. A subscribing institution's student/faculty does not have to pay this cost and a break-even point for the library would be approximately 45 PDF downloads. We estimate that 42 libraries had between 60 and 150 downloads this year.

PLANS FOR IMPROVEMENT

In response to subscriber feedback, we are developing a more sophisticated search tool. We hope to complete this upgrade before the end of 2009.

We are developing a better system to record visits and downloads so subscribing libraries will be able to easily track use by their faculty and students.

Another priority is to ensure that our collection is up-to-date. Now that out website is running, we will work hard to collect dissertations and theses. We are developing the ability for users to submit new research electronically and for us to notify subscribers whenever a new dissertation or conversion is added to our collection. We hope to have these services available by Spring 2010.

To help subscribers manage their searches, we are investigating a tool that would save and organize each user's searches.

We know that at institutions where students and faculty are more aware of the OregonPDF service, we see many more downloads. Our goal is to share as much information as possible, so we are developing ways to help each institution spread the word and maximize use of the service.

To learn more about OregonPDF please contact Dick Brown at:

OregonPDF
1900 Millrace Suite #8
Eugene, OR 97403

editor@oregonpdf.org
www.oregonpdf.org
541-232-2407