OLAC: the Open Language Archives Community

OLAC is an international partnership of institutions and individuals dedicated to creating a worldwide virtual library of language resources. Since its founding in the year 2000, OLAC has enhanced the findability of language resources, thereby contributing to the urgent task of safeguarding and sustaining the world’s diverse linguistic heritage.

OLAC’s mission

OLAC’s mission is to contribute to language conservation, language maintenance, and Open Science by:

• Maintaining a robust network of repositories and services to facilitate seamless cross-institutional access to linguistic resources.
• Working towards consensus on best practices for digital archiving, rich metadata standards, and ethical data stewardship.
• Supporting archival practices that are culturally aware, respectful of language communities, and fair to all stakeholders.

Find language resources

Use OLAC’s search engine at: https://search.language-archives.org/

The OLAC network dynamically aggregates over 300,000 records, facilitating access to resources spanning half of the world’s living languages.

Region: Africa | Americas | Asia | Europe | Pacific

Standards and documentation

Access OLAC’s core technical documentation:

OLAC Standards — The specifications governing how the OLAC metadata network operates.

Recommendations — Community consensus and recommendations for archiving language resources with high-quality metadata.

Notes — Technical guidance, crosswalks, and implementation strategies for repository managers.

General information:
Overview | FAQ | Implementers’ FAQ

Contact the OLAC coordinators via email