American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA), Athens, Greece

The American School of Classical Studies, founded in 1881, is the oldest American overseas research center, and has by far the largest library collections of the ORCs, with a combined total of 185,000 volumes plus archives, collections of maps and topographical surveys, and photo archives. The library system consists of two separate collections, the Carl W. and Elizabeth P. Blegen Library, dedicated to the study of the ancient Greek world, including prehistoric and classical Greek archaeology and art, literature and language, history, and related fields; and the Gennadius Library, dedicated to the study of post-antique Greece, and more broadly, the southern Balkans and the Mediteranean world as they affected Hellenic civilization. The DLIR catalog contains records for maps and books containg maps in these libraries. The complete holdings of the ASCSA libraries can be searched on AMBROSIA, the OPAC shared with the British School of Archaeology.