Center for Research Libraries Collection at Hampshire

Hampshire College is a member of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), which acquires and preserves "unique and little-known documents." The collections, which number about five million items, are international in scope and made available to researchers at member institutions through interlibrary loan, electronic delivery, and on-site use at CRL in Chicago. Read more about CRL.

Search the CRL Collections

CRL Catalog
Search all collections or limit to serials, newspapers, dissertations, or digital materials.

Worldcat
Look for the holding library code “CRL” when searching Worldcat.

Topic Guides
Provides insights on key source materials for research in areas of special interest to CRL libraries,” for example:

Collection Highlights

Newspapers: 6,500 international newspapers, 2,500 US newspapers (many dating to the colonial era), 2,000 US ethnic newspapers
Doctoral dissertations: 800,000 titles from outside the US and Canada
Government documents and other publications: Census reports, legislative journals, official gazettes, and archival collections
Journals: More than 65,000 titles, over 30,000 of which are in languages other than English. These include historic science journals, technology, industrial, and trade journals
Area Studies: Major microform and paper collections from Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asian, Southeast Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe, and other regions

Specialized Research Help

For specific questions or help with identifying material of interest in your topic, please contact one of the librarians. Or, email us for research help: askharold@hampshire.edu

Access to CRL Materials

Online: CRL Digital Collections
CRL digitizes materials to support the specific research and teaching needs of faculty and students at member institutions but also digitizes thematic groups of unique materials anticipating scholarly use. Examples of thematic collections are African newspapers, Latin American newspapers, and Digital South Asia, books, journals, bibliographies, images, and statistical information.

Borrowing through Interlibrary Loan
CRL will lend any quantity of material in any format to researchers at member libraries. Hampshire students and faculty should use the Harold F. Johnson Library Interlibrary Loan service.

Demand Purchase Program
CRL will purchase materials needed by individual researchers in the following categories:

Foreign doctoral dissertations from institutions in countries outside of the U.S. and Canada
Newspapers for which CRL owns at least one day of a newspaper title
Archival material from national governments, NGOs, and other organizations and institutions

A demand purchase request is made through an interlibrary loan request for the needed item. As funds permit, CRL honors requests on a first-come, first-served basis with a maximum expenditure of $2,000 per patron per year.

CRL Quick Links

CRL Catalog
Search all collections or limit to serials, newspapers, dissertations, or digital materials.

CRL Digital Collections
Thematic groups of unique materials.

Topic Guides
Key source materials in CRL's areas of special interests.

CRL Reference Help
Personal research assistance for Hampshire faculty and students.