Welcome to the DLIR!

Building on the established libraries and research collections of its twenty-three constituent centers, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) in 1999 launched the American Overseas Digital Library (AODL). The AODL is as a cost-effective, efficient, centralized, Internet-based mechanism for the standardization and electronic delivery of important bibliographic and full-text primary and secondary source information from all CAORC member centers, covering both print collections and research collections in other media. The initial resources for the AODL program were located in overseas centers in Europe, the Near and Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and West Africa. The program now includes bibliographic materials from Inner Asia and the New World, as well as from other collections in countries that host centers. To reflect this new level of participation and coverage, in November 2004 the program's name was changed to Digital Library for International Research (DLIR).

The keystone of the Digital Library for International Research, and the first of its goals to be completed, is the on-line public access catalog containing the records of all the holdings in all participating libraries. From 1999 until 2008 the DLIR's Online Catalog, was maintained at the University of Utah's Marriott Library. In 2008 it was migrated to the Center for Research Libraries, in cooperation with CRL's Global Resources Network. DLIR's catalog continues to grow rapidly as new materials are acquired and cataloged. Additional components of the DLIR program are brought online as they are completed. Please see the e-Resources page for a current list of online research resources.

 

Cooperative Digitization of International Research Materials

YemenThe Cooperative Digitization of International Research Materials (CDIRM) utilizes participating American overseas research centers’ connections to collaborate with foreign archives and special collections that hold unique and rare research materials. Selected materials from Guatemala, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Yemen, and Mongolia will be made easily and freely available over the Internet to American and international scholars and students. Not only are most of these materials uncataloged, unavailable, or unknown to scholars, most are extremely difficult to access (because of location, unsettled political conditions, privacy issues, or bureaucratic procedures). The Coordinator of the Digital Library for International Research, located at the Center for Research Libraries, will act as program manager. As were the creation of the DLIR union catalog and the LALORC program described above, this project, started in 2009, is funded by a 4-year matching grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access (TICFIA) program.

 

Local Archives and Libraries at Overseas Research Centers

MosqueThe Local Archives and Libraries at Overseas Research Centers (LALORC) project, is an initiative of the American Institute for Yemeni Studies and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. The project produced a directory of libraries and archives in various international locations, as well as bibliographic and digital projects. Bibliographic projects are incorporated into the DLIR union catalog and digital projects are cited below. Funding for this project has been provided by the U.S. Department of Education's Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access (TICFIA) program (2005-2009).

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