The publication and preservation of doctoral dissertations is fundamental to progression of research in a field. It allows future generations to 'stand on the shoulders of giants'.
Archiving dissertations requires to store them in a way that they will be accessible even when technologies change. Classical paper publications fulfill those requirements but have disadvantages such as the need for physical storage or distribution. An increasingly popular alternative is to store dissertations as electronic documents such as PDF files.
In this study, we analyze the extent to which electronically available doctoral dissertations published in Sweden fulfill the basic requirements of standard conformance and applicability for long-term archiving.
We find that only a small proportion of dissertations' electronic publications follow the Swedish National Archive's requirements to conform to standards made for long-term archiving. Only at one Swedish university, a significant number of electronic publications does conform to PDF/A-1b. Interestingly, conformance to PDF/A-1b correlates to properly setting the title of a PDF document and choosing a paper format different from A4 (ISO 216). This suggests that the consequences of missed compliance for long-term archiving are not commonly known and authors have to make a conscious choice for PDF/A-1b compliance.