The China Academic Digital Associative Library (CADAL)

Abstract

In 2000, a collaboration project called the China-America Digital Academic Library (CADAL) was launched by Chinese and U.S. computer scientists and supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Chinese Ministry of Education. The leading parties, Carnegie Mellon University and Zhejiang University, pioneered the construction of massive, digitized resources across the world. In 2002, CADAL merged with the China Academic Library and Information System into the China Academic Digital Library and Information System, emerging as one of the most important information infrastructures in the nation. In August 2009, the China Academic Digital Associative Library (new CADAL) was approved by the Ministry of Education, initiating CADAL Project Phase II. CADAL has promoted Chinese university libraries from the role of information-sharing institutions to partners of resource construction and sharing, achieving the world's largest non-profit digital library with more than 2.5 million Chinese and English e-books, a resource that has been exclusively “made in China.”