LIBRARY
OVERVIEW

The library of the Asian Legacy Library is the flagship destination and access point for its preservation programs, including the digitizing, cataloging, and archiving of literature. A safe and enduring home, the ALL library is an important nexus of source literature that is used by scholars, translators, and academics.

The library includes three major collections: the Himalayan and Inner Asian Collection, the South Asian Collection, and the East Asian Collection.

Access to the library is free and open to all. Membership is not required. We invite you to join our mailing list to get updated on additions to the library.

ALL’s mission is to join technology and scholarship to locate, preserve, share, and translate some of the world’s most precious collections of cultural wisdom heritage. The central foundation of ALL’s mission is its digital infrastructure. The ALL digital library is a public online virtual library that makes available an incredible collection of literary wisdom heritage to the world, for free.

ALL is unique in its approach. First, important texts are located in remote corners of the world. Discovered texts are cataloged to ensure they are properly identified. After cataloging, texts are scanned using modern equipment. Scanning produces image files which are then input—the laborious process of keying in, character by character, the content of works.

The input process makes the texts searchable so that researchers, scholars, and translators can search the content of works, locating phrases, terms, people, and places. Lastly, preserved texts are translated into other languages, making their content relevant and usable for modern life. Having all four resources—catalogs, scans, input, and translations—in a public online digital library is mission-fulfilling for ALL.