The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) is the leadership organization for the Canadian research library community.

As an organization incorporated under the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act, CARL coordinates the joint initiatives of our members and advances their causes to achieve excellence in Canadian research and higher education.

The Association's members are the 29 major academic research libraries across Canada together with three national memory organizations.  Please refer our member page for complete list of CARL members.

A brief overview of CARL can be found here.

Our Mission

CARL strives to enhance the capacity of member libraries to partner in research and higher education.  We seek effective and sustainable scholarly communication and public policy that encourage research and broad access to scholarly information.

CARL's Strategic Plan 2010-2012 focuses on the continuing transformation of scholarly communication, advocacy for favourable oucomes in the federal public policy environment, and the strengthening and promoting Canada's research libraries.

Our Organization

Please refer to our most recent organizational chart to see which committees and staff positions we currently have, and how these relate to each other.

Our history

Please refer to our historical notes for some key points in the development of the Association. A list of CARL's Presidents can be found here as well.