Miscellaneous materials

Center for Research Libraries materials

The Virginia Tech Libraries is one of 230 members of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL). CRL acquires and preserves: 

• newspapers
• journals
• documents
• archives
• other traditional and digital resources for research and teaching.

These resources are then made available to member institutions through interlibrary loan and electronic delivery. 

The Center's mission is to support advanced research and teaching in the humanities, sciences and social sciences by ensuring the survival and availability of the knowledge resources vital to these disciplines. 

The Center makes available more than four million publications, archives, and collections to its member libraries to supplement their own humanities, social science and science holdings, such as:

• 6,500 international newspapers, many dating to the 1700's
• 4,500 U.S. newspapers, many dating to the colonial era, including 2,000 ethnic titles
• Foreign journals that are rarely held in U.S. libraries
• More than 800,000 foreign dissertations
• Area Studies – Major microform and paper collections from Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Europe, Asia, Southeast Asia, and more.

Interlibrary Loan and document delivery

Use Interlibrary Loan (ILL) ILLiad to submit requests. Virginia Tech ILL makes the final decisions of which libraries from which to request items, but if you have identified through CRL's catalog that CRL holds the item you want, and you need: 

• an extended run of a serial or newspaper
• to borrow for an extended period of time

please indicate that information in the Notes field of the ILLiad request form. Many CRL holdings are microfilm or microfiche copies of the original. Whatever format Virginia Tech ILL receives a document is the format that is passed to the customer.

Loan period

The generous loan period for Center materials 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 borrower is obligated to return material immediately upon recall.

Document delivery

Items with fewer than 50 pages are routinely delivered digitally. The Center can also deliver documents via fax or photocopy.