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Find information on spaces, staff, and services.
Find information on spaces, staff, and services.
The Center for Research Libraries (CRL) is located in Chicago, Illinois. The collections of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) are maintained to supplement and complement the major collections in North American libraries, including UW-Madison libraries. All CRL cataloged records are also in WorldCat.
You can access and search the entire CRL Catalog online.
CRL holdings support topical and analytical studies across regions and disciplines, including the history of science and technology; law and government; environmental and physical sciences; economics, trade, and finance; immigration and population studies; international diplomacy, and cultural studies. The CRL Catalog describes over 600,000 titles, all of which are also listed in WorldCat. However, CRL also has numerous uncataloged collections, many of which are large microform sets. Topical Guides describe the uncataloged collections. Examples include the publications of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, archival papers of historical importance, foreign doctoral dissertations, newspapers (foreign, ethnic, and U.S. general circulation), state documents, Africana, East Asian materials, early printed books and other literature in European languages, South and Southeast Asian materials, transcripts of news broadcasts, children’s books, textbooks for primary and secondary schools, and university and college catalogs published prior to 1975.
Each year CRL member libraries make collaborative decisions on acquisitions of new sets of material. In addition, CRL will purchase some kinds of material on demand for researchers from member institutions. UW-Madison researchers in need of such a purchase should first contact the Interlibrary Loan Office at Memorial Library.
The CRL provides interlibrary loan service for patrons of member institutions’ libraries. Loans can be made for extended periods and without limitation on the format or amount of material borrowed. Arrangements to borrow CRL materials (particularly microforms) are made through Interlibrary Loan. Books may also be requested through WorldCat.
While it is most convenient to borrow material and have it sent to a UW-Madison library, students, faculty, and other researchers may also visit the CRL Reading Room. Advance arrangements for visits should be made by contacting the CRL Reading Room directly.