CRL preserves and makes available to researchers published materials and archives from all world regions, with special concentration on four major collecting domains. (For information on the main subject strengths of the collections, see the CRL topic guides.)
CRL Collection Policies
CRL collects materials directly through purchase, exchange, deposit, and born-digital ingest based on established policies and guidelines authorized by CRL’s Board of Directors with the advice and recommendations of the Collections and Services Policy Committee (CSPC). Please also see the CRL Preservation Policy for information on collection activities.
Collections by Domain
News
CRL holds more than 16,000 newspaper titles from countries in all world regions, and from every US state, including more than 1,800 U.S. ethnic titles and some of the earliest African American papers. CRL currently subscribes to dozens of international newspapers and to many US ethnic press papers.
Notice: Domestic Newspaper Titles on Microfilm Discontinued Effective 12/31/2017
CRL microfilms current issues of selected international newspapers on an ongoing basis, in addition to the back files of important newspapers identified through collaborative programs like the Area Materials Projects, part of the Global Resources Programs.
Law and government information
CRL collects broadly in the area of primary legal and government resources, with an emphasis on serial publications from central governments including legislative, administrative, financial, and statistical reports. CRL purchases government archives and records through CRL's cooperative collection building programs.
Foreign government documents: CRL holds several hundred thousand volumes of publications from the government agencies of more than 100 countries, including more than 1,750 official gazettes. CRL frequently augments its historical collections of original format government documents with microform collections either purchased or acquired through its cooperative programs.
US state government documents: CRL has collected more than a half million volumes of deposited and purchased monographic and serial publications of US state government agencies and legislatures from the earliest period through 1950, including financial reports and research studies. Excluded content includes internal agency newsletters, agricultural station publications, maps, and state court reports. Most of the collection is not cataloged; to identify resources, consult state publications checklists or contact CRL’s Access Services.
Science, technology, and engineering
CRL holds extensive foreign-language science and technology periodicals, including many titles not commonly collected by other major North American research libraries. CRL has developed rich historical holdings of US and international scientific and technical publications, and provides access to a total of more than 50,000 current and historical journals archived and available through its Global Resources Partnership in Science, Technology, and Engineering with the Linda Hall Library.
History and economics of agriculture
CRL's collections related to the history and economics of agriculture represent another area of strength. Extensive holdings of journals, census data, and historical monographs include materials not widely held by major academic research libraries. CRL also provides digital access to a growing corpus of historical materials through its Global Resources Agriculture Partnership with the United States Agriculture Information Network (USAIN) and the Agriculture Network Information Center (AgNIC).
Collections by Resource Types
Materials supporting research and teaching in the four major domains described above, as well as in a variety of other subjects, include:
Archives
Millions of pages of documents, including:
- Major sets from the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), The National Archives of the UK, and other national and intergovernmental bodies.
- Extensive archival sets from federal and state agencies and commissions; nongovernmental organizations; and scholarly and missionary societies.
- Many special collections of archival and primary source material from various world regions (such as the 100,000-plus-page archive of Cambodia's notorious Khmer Rouge regime).
Serials
Rich historical collections, as well as current subscriptions to more than 7,000 titles rarely held in North American libraries, including the following categories:
- Foreign-language science and technology periodicals
- US trade and industrial journals
- South Asian serials acquired through the Library of Congress South Asia Cooperative Acquisitions Program (SACAP) and Southeast Asian serials acquired through the Library of Congress Cooperative Acquisitions Program for Southeast Asia (CAP-SEA).
- Retrospective print archive of titles digitized through JSTOR.
Notice: List of current serial subscriptions to be canceled in Fiscal Year 2018 (371 titles)
Monographs
CRL holds more than 500,000 monographs in all formats. Ongoing acquisitions include:
- Major microform sets in literature, art, theater, music, science, and other fields.
- Unique publications from South and Southeast Asia produced by governmental and nongovernmental organizations in those regions.
International doctoral dissertations
CRL acquires hundreds of non-US, non-Canadian doctoral dissertations a year to add to its 800,000+ collection of dissertations. Acquisitions are primarily through the demand purchase program.
Other Collections
CRL holds many specialized types of materials, acquired primarily through deposit from member libraries. These include:
- College and University Catalogs
- Primary and Secondary Textbooks
- Railroad Publications
- Curriculum Guides
- International Central Bank Publications
- Reference Books Archive