Theological Research Exchange Network, or TREN, is our source for finding dissertations. TREN contains mostly DMin and ThM dissertations, but other degrees are sometimes included as well. TREN also contains some older ETS Conference papers.
The best way to use TREN is to access it using the link on our library website (see the “Research Databases” list). This will log you into Western’s account (You might notice some text at the top of the page saying there is a certain number of downloads left – please ignore this number and download as many as you want/need. We automatically refresh this limit whenever we need to.). You’ll see two different search boxes, one for theses/dissertations and one for conference papers. You can search for dissertations by title keyword, author, school, degree, and/or year.
Once you perform a search, you’ll see a list of results. To access a document, click on the “Add this Digital e-Doc to the Western Seminary (OR) subscription” link. The next screen provides the “DOWNLOAD NOW!” link. It also provides the password needed to open the file. Please note: TREN documents are password-protected at the PDF-file level. You WILL need to enter this password every time you open the file, even after you download it.