The Center for Research Libraries (CRL) is an international consortium of university, college, and independent research libraries. Founded in 1949, CRL supports original research and inspired teaching in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences by preserving and making available to scholars a wealth of rare and uncommon primary source materials from all world regions.
CRL's deep and diverse collections are shaped by specialists and experts at the major U.S. and Canadian research universities, who work together to identify and preserve unique and uncommon documentation and evidence, to ensure its long-term integrity and accessibility to researchers worldwide.
Faculty and students at KPU have free and unlimited access to CRL collections through the KPU Library.
You can find more about the history of CRL at https://www.crl.edu/about/history.
Scholars and researchers at KPU can access the CRL collections through KPU interlibrary loan. The loan period is unlimited, but is subject to possible recall notice.
Locate desired materials held by CRL and submit interlibrary loan requests through our KPU ILL.
Please indicate under Special Instructions that the material should be borrowed from CRL.
Materials that have already been digitized can be viewed online through the CRL Catalogue.The CRL collections contain a wide range of materials (such as archival materials, newspapers, periodicals, books, and dissertations) covering a variety of topics. Some materials are have been digitized, while others are on microform or print. Please see the CRL website’s page on its collecting areas for more information. (https://www.crl.edu/collections/crl-collecting-areas)
The best starting point for gaining an understanding of the materials by subject area is to review CRL’s Topic Guides.
Materials that have already been digitized can be viewed online through the CRL Catalogue.
CRL Resources at a Glance
- 6,500 international newspapers, many dating to the 1700s--the largest collection of circulating newspapers in North America. Search their international newspapers collection.
- 4,500 U.S. newspapers, many dating to the colonial era, including 2,000 ethnic titles. Search the collection of US ethnic newspapers.
- Foreign journals that are rarely held in U.S. libraries
- More than 800,000 foreign dissertations.
- A rapidly growing collection of over 1 million digital resources. Search resources through the CRL Catalogue.
- Area Studies - Major microform and paper collections from Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Europe, Asia, Southeast Asia and other world regions. See Collection Highlights and CRL's Topic Guides for more detail.
Students, faculty, and staff have free and unlimited use of CRL collections through the Queen's University Library's institutional membership.
To identify materials at CRL, please search their online catalog. Select Advanced.
Search by words or subjects. Limit by field (title, author, subject etc.) and then further limit by scrolling and selecting type of publication (newspaper, online etc.)
Chinese Pamphlets Political Communication and Mass Education
Pamphlets, picture books, and other propaganda issued during the early years of the People’s Republic between 1947 and 1954. This is the "street literature" of the revolution which was distributed to the population of the provincial cities and villages.
Dziennik Zwiazkowy
The first ten years (1908–17) of Dziennik Zwiazkowy, founded in Chicago in 1908 by the Polish National Alliance. Representing local, national, and international issues of concern to the Polish community, the paper continues today as the Polish Daily News.
Slavery and Manumission Manuscripts of Timbuktu
Digitized versions of approximately 200 19th-century manuscripts (in Arabic) relating to slavery and manumission in Timbuktu. These provide documentation on Africans in slavery in Muslim societies
Brazilian Government Documents
Digitized executive branch serial documents issued by Brazil’s national government between 1821 and 1993, and by its provincial governments from the earliest available for each province to the end of the first Republic in 1930.
Pamphlets and Periodicals of the French Revolution of 1848
Digital collection of pamphlets and periodicals from the French Revolution of 1848 held by Center for Research Libraries.
Digital South Asia Library
The Digital South Asia Library provides digital materials for reference and research on South Asia, including books and journals, full-text dictionaries, bibliographies, images, maps, and statistical information from the colonial period through the present.
CRL holds more than 800,000 doctoral dissertations and Habilitationsschriften from universities outside of the U.S. and Canada. The collection was built by deposits from member libraries and exchange or depository arrangements with almost 100 universities.
Brief description:
- Most were written in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, but dates range from 1800 to the present.
- Most are from countries in Western Europe, such as Germany, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Many are from other countries in Europe and Latin America, South America, and Africa.
- More than 80 languages are represented in the collection. The breakdown of languages is: 66 percent German; 16 percent French; 6 percent English; 2 percent Dutch; 1 percent Latin and Swedish; and less than 1 percent for other languages.
- Contains about 120 dissertations by nobel laureates and numerous other notable scholars. All of the nobel laureates dissertations are digitized and a sizable portion of the notable scholars' dissertations are digitized as well.
You can limit to dissertations from the Advanced Search screen under the Limit To box:
CRL holds over 66,000 serials including a large collection of trade journals from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century. It has 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
- Southeast Asian serials
- Retrospective print archive of titles digitized through JSTOR.
CRL has vast holdings of newspapers from all regions of the world; and collections of scripts, transcripts, and translations of news reports, produced or compiled by the British Broadcasting Corporation, CBS, the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, and the Voice of America.
Newspaper holdings include over 16,000 titles, more than 10,000 of which are published outside the U.S. CRL endeavors to collect extensive complete runs of newspaper titles.
To limit to newspapers only, select that format under Limit To on the advanced search page.
- Request a purchase: Please contact your Liaison Librarian for more information.
CRL acquires items in response to loan requests for materials not held, through the Demand Purchase Program. Member ILL offices initiate requests for demand purchases by indicating in the borrowing note field on the ILL request form: “Please purchase if not owned.” As funds permit, CRL will acquire archival materials, newspapers, or international doctoral dissertations at a maximum cost of $2,000 per patron per year. CRL may decline to purchase materials which are readily available from one or more member libraries. - Research Support:
A Reference Consultation with KPU Liaison Librarian and a CRL librarian can help you identify material in our collection that is relevant to your research topic. - Collobarative Digitizaton:
Collaborative efforts with CRL partners result in adding an average of nearly four million digitized pages annually, hosted on various platforms. Specialists at member libraries help CRL identify materials for digitization. Priority is given to primary sources that will have a measurable impact on research, and those potentially at risk through physical damage or hostile political environments.