This question (cry for help?) grew out of Colin Tan's question: does anyone have a copy of schmid’s effective work on hilbert 17th? which was a request for a copy of an Habilitationsschrift.
We've all been in this situation: somebody works on a dissertation of some kind, obtains interesting results, but either can't be bothered to publish because they're leaving the profession, or do publish the essentials, but have to omit some important details because of space considerations.
Inter-library loan can be an option in these cases, but it's very likely to take a very long time if it works at all. In the US, it appears that most universities require you to sign away your reproduction right to an independent company which will keep your dissertation on microfilm (correct me if I'm wrong, this is CW after all!). So in that case, you can track down a copy of the dissertation in question (if you're willing to pay for it) — that is, if you can manage to track down the reproduction service in question.
Some countries, on the other hand, feel the need to maintain an online repository of the student work done in their universities. Here again, it involves a non-trivial slog through various library links before finding the right place (and may demand a better command of the language than for math reading). Hence, the question, which is more of a suggestion:
How about we gather a list of links to various dissertation repositories / reproduction services right here?
Suggestion: Since no answer is "better" than any other, and to improve readability, it would be best to keep this to a single list answer that can be edited with the various contributions. Thanks in advance!
Best Answer
Here is the list:
Further links from the mathphysicist's answer: