The South Asian Microform Project, also known by South Asian Materials Project and SAMP is one of six programs headed by the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) Global network. SAMP preserves higher education material via microform, among other techniques.[1]
SAMP is affiliated with the Association for Asian Studies.[2] In 2019 SAMP partnered with JSTOR providing over 500,000 digitized pages freely available as of March 2020.[3]
Early foundations of SAMP began in 1962 by academic scholars and librarians who felt the need to preserve physical material. These individuals formed the Inter-University Committee on South Asian Scholarly Resources at the University of Chicago, led by chairman Robert E. Frykenberg of the University of Wisconsin History Department. These individuals wanted to coordinate the filming and bibliographic control of these materials. Other earlier objects of SAMP included:
CRL officially founded SAMP in 1967, focusing on materials from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. They primarily specialized in collecting documents that were difficult to achieve, expensive, or of limited quantities. By the end of their first year, SAMP had gathered a total of thirteen items.
CRL memberships are not required to take part in SAMP. Any institution or nonprofit organization that maintains a library can participate. Members are granted full access to the materials provided by the SAMP. The following is the current list of university members of the SAMP:[4]