Some online resources in the CRL Catalog are restricted to member access only via IP. To enable access to these materials from off-campus locations, we recommend that member institutions take the following steps:

• Add CRL hosts, including catalog.crl.edu and dds.crl.edu, to your institution’s Proxy server configuration
• On your library Web site, add your proxy prefix to all CRL links, including catalog.crl.edu and www.crl.edu

CRL staff receive a number of support calls about off-campus access. While we often have to direct off-campus access questions from end-users to their home institution library, we encourage contacts from technical staff in charge of your proxy server. Please refer questions related to CRL hosts configuration on your Proxy server to CRL Systems staff.

Sample configuration for EZProxy Server

• T Center for Research Libraries
• U http://www.crl.edu
• DJ crl.edu
• HJ catalog.crl.edu
• HJ dds.crl.edu
• HJ ecollections.crl.edu
• HJ contentdm.crl.edu
• HJ images.crl.edu
• DJ llmcdigital.org
• HJ www.llmcdigital.org

 

Scholars and researchers from CRL libraries have free and unlimited use of the CRL collections through interlibrary loan.

Readers from institutions outside the membership can use the collection for a pre-paid fee and subject to certain restrictions. Requests should be sent to CRL by your interlibrary loan office. For more information on non-member borrowing, please see our nonmember lending page.

CRL will accept an ILL request via OCLC (ILLiad), Fax (773-955-9732), email asd [at] crl [dot] edu, or U.S. mail service. The center also has special arrangements with Article Reach, Connect NY, OhioLINK, Prospector, Rapid, and SUMMIT.

Uncataloged material can be verified on the Collections Search Link. If you do not find the desired material, please contact our Access Services Department for verification.

The Center will lend any quantity of material in any format to member institutions. For non-member institutions, CRL will lend a maximum of 12 microfilm reels or 24 fiches of one title per request; the amount of print material sent depends on shipping costs. Each non-member library is limited to 25 filled requests per year (loans and copies).

The generous loan period for CRL member institutions is three months with unlimited renewals. However, all material may be recalled after two weeks use if requested by another member institution or project participant. The non-member loan period is four weeks, no renewals, with the material being subject to recall after two weeks use if requested by a member institution or project participant.

CRL ships via United Parcel Service (UPS) 2-Day Delivery to requesters in the United States and Canada. Routine shipping costs to the borrower are paid for by CRL. In cases where the shipping cost is not routine, the borrowing library will be informed of any possible additional charges. Any additional charges must be prepaid.

The Center's turnaround time averages less than one business day for all routine requests.

CRL member institutions may request an additional three months renewal via OCLC (ILLiad), Fax (773-955-9732), email asd [at] crl [dot] edu, U.S. mail service or by calling (773)955-4545 ext.321.

If a member institution requests material already on loan to another user for at least fourteen days, the Center will recall the material. The member institution may submit a recall by contacting Access Services via OCLC (ILLiad), Fax (773-955-9732), phone (1-800-621-6044 ext.321), email asd [at] crl [dot] edu, or U.S. mail service.

The Center requests that borrowed material be returned by UPS to enable tracking. Borrowed material may also be returned by U.S. Postal Service library rate. Much of the center’s material is in fragile condition. We ask that material be packed properly to avoid any possible damage.

When patrons at CRL member libraries request loans of material, we scan the items and provide digital delivery if the extent and format will allow us to provide access within four working days. All digitized documents remain linked from the catalog for other patrons.

Digitized material which is no longer under copyright may be accessed from our catalog. If the material is under copyright, it is accessible only to our members. Member institutions must register their IP addresses with CRL for access to copyrighted material. Patrons of member institutions may have off campus access of copyrighted material if they have proxy through their institution.

Material chosen for digitizing must meet certain guidelines.  Please contact Access Services to find out if the material you would like to have scanned is eligible.

To meet scholars’ individual research needs the Center purchases materials in three categories on demand (Foreign Doctoral Dissertations, Newspapers, Archival material). As funds permit, requests for demand purchases are honored on a first-come, first-served basis with a maximum expenditure of $2,000 per patron per year. You may find more details on the Demand Purchase Program page.

Requests to the Center for demand purchases are initiated by member ILL offices. To expedite the demand purchase, the ILL office may place a note on the ILL request stating “Please purchase if do not own”.

Turnaround time for demand purchases differ for material, origin, and format. You may find a list of average turnaround times for the top 10 institutions from which CRL places orders for demand purchase dissertations.

The author or institution requires the borrower to sign a TDF (Thesis Declaration Form), also known as a CD (Copyright Declaration). By signing the TDF or CD, the reader agrees to recognize that copyright of the dissertation resides with either the author or the university to which the dissertation was submitted and that the reader will not quote or derive information from the work without prior written consent of the author or university.

Please contact the Access Services Department should you have any questions concerning a demand purchase.

Once a demand purchase has been received, it will be shipped to your institution after being properly processed. The original request will be used although it may no longer be active in the Resource Sharing system. Should there be any problems with acquiring a demand purchase, the institution will immediately be notified.

You may contact Kevin Wilks, Head of Access Services, or the Center at (773)955-4545. You may find a detailed staff directory on our website.

CRL is a consortium of more than 240 college, university, and independent research libraries that makes available through interlibrary loan and digital delivery approximately five million publications, archives, and collections and one million digital resources to its member libraries to supplement their humanities, science, and social science holdings. Located in Chicago, CRL was founded in 1949 and is governed by a fifteen-member board drawn entirely from the higher education community.

Membership in CRL is open to higher education institutions and research libraries in two main types: Voting (North American institutions) and Global (institutions outside of North America). Non-members can access CRL materials through pre-paid user accounts.

Prospective institutions are obliged to submit a membership application letter—for review and approval by CRL’s Board of Directors—indicating they have read and agree to the terms of CRL bylaws. The membership year runs from July 1 – June 30th annually; however, new members can enroll on the first day of any month on a prorated basis. To learn more, please contact Don Dyer, CRL’s Membership and Communications Coordinator, at 773-955-4545, ext. 317 or dyer [at] crl [dot] edu.

As a consortium, Voting members support CRL activities and services by paying an annual, apportioned, “means-based” cost share, rather than a fee. Cost shares are calculated as a small percentage of an institution’s annual library materials expenditures, averaged over five years. Global members pay an annual fee. Non-members pay on a per-request basis.

Two-day express courier, digital links, and electronic delivery.

• Two-day express - All returnable materials are delivered by two-day express courier. Last year, 92% of all interlibrary loan requests were processed in a single business day, then shipped by two-day express.
• Digital delivery - CRL now delivers as much requested material as possible digitally. The average turn-around time is four days, but whether individual requests can be delivered digitally depends on the extent and condition of the requested material. We expect to provide desktop delivery to the vast majority of requests within the decade.
  • Accessing digital files – Digital files are accessed through a link on the bibliographic record. Users whose requests have been filled digitally are forwarded a link, once the material accessible.
  • Copyright note - To enable a “fair use” consultation of titles with copyright restrictions, we make digital copies available for restricted, non-simultaneous use by members within a limited period.
• Electronically – More than 95% of all-page image copies of articles are processed and delivered (by email, ARIEL, fax transmissions) in a single day.

Benefits for Voting and Global memberships are summarized below.

Voting member benefits include the following:

• Unlimited access to CRL materials, which are delivered to member institutions at no additional cost.
• A 90-day loan period, with 90-day renewals as needed.
• Participation in the Purchase Proposal Program—an annual, ballot-based, cooperative acquisition program.
• Participation in the Shared Purchase Program—a cooperative acquisition program based on CRL-organized buyer groups.
• Participation in the Demand Purchase Program, in which patrons (i.e., individual faculty, grad students, etc.) at member institutions can request purchases up to $2,000 annually in three areas: foreign dissertations, newspapers, and archival material.
• Electronic delivery of materials, when possible
• Eligible to load CRL catalog records or subsets at no charge (includes periodic updates)
• Program and service orientations available for member staff.
• Individualized resource searches available through CRL’s User Services.
• Participation in planned scanning projects through User Services.
• Web consultations to optimize user access to the CRL catalog.
• Free subscription to The Charleston Advisor.
• Cost avoidance - Many members take advantage of CRL’s large legacy newspaper collections on microfilm—and third-day delivery—to discontinue costly subscriptions, thus saving or redirecting funds to other purposes
• Eligible to participate in JSTOR, ICON, Print Archiving, and other CRL activities and partnerships.

Global member benefits include the following:

• Unlimited access to the majority of CRL materials. Paper-based and other hard-copy materials are not available for interlibrary loan. Global members pay all shipping costs.
• A 90-day loan period, with 90-day renewals as needed.
• Participation in the Shared Purchase Program—a cooperative acquisition program based on CRL-organized buyer groups.
• Participation in the Demand Purchase Program, in which patrons (i.e., individual faculty, grad students, etc.) at member institutions can request purchases up to $2,000 annually in three areas: foreign dissertations, newspapers, and archival material.
• Electronic delivery of materials, when possible
• Eligible to load CRL catalog records or subsets at no charge (includes periodic updates)
• Program and service orientations available for member staff.
• Individualized resource searches available through CRL’s User Services.
• Participation in planned scanning projects through User Services.
• Web consultations to optimize user access to the CRL catalog.
• Free subscription to The Charleston Advisor

CRL materials are available to non-members through interlibrary loan on a cost recovery basis. To access CRL materials, non-members must set up a pre-paid user account, and then request the materials through a library or directly through Access Services.

CRL resources include:

• 6,500 international newspapers, many dating to the 1700s—the largest collection of circulating newspapers in North America.
• 4,500 U.S. newspapers, many dating to the colonial era, including 2,000 ethnic titles.
• More than 38,000 foreign journals that are rarely held in U.S. libraries.
• More than 800,000 foreign dissertations, mostly from European universities.
• Area Studies - Major microform and paper collections from Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Europe, Asia, Southeast Asia, and more.

All members are eligible to:

• Load CRL catalog records at no charge (includes periodic updates)
• Program and service orientations available for member staff.
• Individualized resource searches available through CRL’s User Services Liaison.
• Web consultations to optimize user access to the CRL catalog.
• Participation in JSTOR, ICON, Print Archiving, and other CRL activities and partnerships.

Voting members are eligible to participate in CRL governance and all of the following programs. Global members do not vote or participate in governance.

• Governance—election to the board, committee and task force appointments, budget responsibilities, etc.
• Purchase Proposal Program—an annual, ballot-based, cooperative acquisition program.
• Shared Purchase Program—a cooperative acquisition program based on buyer groups.
• Demand Purchase Program—in which patrons (i.e., individual faculty, grad students, etc.) at member institutions can request purchases up to $2,000 annually in three areas: foreign dissertations, newspapers, and archival material.

Materials are requested through standard interlibrary loan systems, including OCLC, ILL Manager, Iliad, InnReach, Fax, and U.S. mail. The materials are then delivered through ARIEL, Odyssey, fax, or links from our online catalog to a Digital Delivery Server. All returnable items are shipped by two day express.

CRL is not charging a fee for its records. We hope that including CRL’s records in your local databases will increase the visibility of CRL resources among your faculty and students and feel that it is an important service to provide to you.

Harvard University and University of Florida have loaded all of CRL’s records. Brigham Young, Canisius, Claremont Colleges, Michigan State University, Queens University, University of Virginia, and University of Western Ontario have loaded eresource records. Grinnell College has loaded records for microforms sets.

Members handle this in different ways. Some examples are: Harvard – Neue Freie Presse Grinnell – Underground press Michigan State – Land of veiled women

CRL can provide subsets based on a variety of categories such as language, country, format, or CRL identified collection such as dissertations. Limiting to more than one category, such as German language dissertations is also possible or all digitized material except dissertations.

As of 9/1/08 there were about 1.3 million records in the database.

CRL will offer updates quarterly. The current schedule is the first week of January, April, July, and October. Updates include a file of records newly created, a file of records edited in the 3 months prior to the update and a list of bib record numbers for records deleted during that quarter.

Records can be in exported from CRL’s catalog in MARC8 or UTF8 depending on which format the member library needs. For updates, separate files of the same records are created in MARC8 and UTF8.

CRL has set up an FTP server from which members can pick up the files of records once they have been given the authorization to access the server.

The only problem reported by members who currently load records was that the diacritics did not show properly in their local catalogs. In every case, this was corrected by adding Arial Unicode MS font to the beginning of the font group in the style sheets.

In June 2005, MARCIVE performed authority control and database maintenance on the entire database. Catalogers check all subject headings and added entries for records above minimal level when using copy records from OCLC. When feasible, catalogers create new records or upgrade existing records according to CONSER/BIBCO standards which require the authentication of subject headings.

CRL can customize the file size to member needs. One member loaded all of the records from four files of 300,000 plus records each and another member requested files no bigger than 50,000 and divided by format of material cataloged.

Yes CRL records can be included. All CRL records are updated in Worldcat. Members simply need to inform OCLC that they want to include CRL records in the implementation.