Overview
The Asian Classics Input Project is dedicated to locating, cataloging, digitally preserving, and disseminating rapidly disappearing Tibetan and Sanskrit manuscripts that hold the philosophical, cultural, and religious heritage of endangered cultures dating back more than 2000 years. The Asian Classics Input Project works to preserve these texts containing the great ideas of the Eastern half of humanity and to make these books and ideas accessible to the world at large.

Our mission is carried out in several steps. First, we search the globe for the surviving collections of books, and record their location and contents in catalog form. Next we copy the books and send these copies to be input onto computer media at data entry centers that we have established around the world.

Almost all of these data centers are staffed by people who come from the regions where these great books were written and printed. Many are refugees from, or living in countries where economic or political problems endanger their great books, and even the right to read and study them. ACIP helps not only to preserve these rich cultural traditions, but provides these people with an opportunity to learn new skills for supporting themselves, while helping to save the great books of their heritage.

Next, ACIP makes these books and the important ideas they contain available to the world. Since 1989 ACIP has released tens of thousands of pages of great books, on computer disc and through the internet, free of charge, to thousands of users in more than 50 countries.