ACIP has a policy of supplying all of its materials freely, without charge. We do ask for a donation towards the cost of material and shipping; nonetheless, we will supply, as long as we can afford to do so financially, all our materials free of charge to any person who honestly cannot afford to help us with a donation. This is particularly true of those Tibetans who would like to use our materials, anywhere in the world.

All released ACIP materials can be downloaded from this site which contains all links to the Princeton University ftp site. The contents of Release IV will appear on this site shortly after the publication of the release. The entire database, and important new updates both to the data and to the AsiaView program for using the data, will also be available from this site.

Please note that a number of the items in the ACIP database are restricted and do not appear on our public releases. In respect of the centuries-old tradition of the Buddhist lineages of Tibet and India, and in particular out of respect for the current holders of these lineages who work closely with ACIP in locating and preserving these materials, ACIP has a policy of not releasing to the general public those texts which are by tradition considered secret.

Users who have received the necessary initiations to study these materials may submit a request to ACIP for a particular text stating the details of their initiation, and pledging their cooperation in not releasing this data to the general public. Please be aware that files supplied on this basis may include a special code identifying the user, and future data may be withheld from users whose copies are found to have reached the general public, either through the Internet or other avenues. Texts which are distributed only in this manner are marked in both the abbreviated printed catalog and in the full ACIP Master Catalog with an asterisk (*).

A certain number of copyrighted texts, primarily reference materials such as dictionaries, have also been input by ACIP for the exclusive use of both its in-house staff and scholars directly related to the project. These materials are not supplied to the general public in ACIP data releases, but are included on these releases in an encrypted form, so that they can be used by authorized staff around the world without pressing a separate CD-ROM. For more information about obtaining copies of these works, please contact ACIP. Texts which are copyrighted are marked in both the abbreviated printed catalog and in the full ACIP Master Catalog with a number sign (#).

Users will notice a number of items in the ACIP catalogs that are marked with a caret (^). These are texts which are currently on order from our overseas data input centers, and are expected back shortly. Oftentimes these are the final pieces needed to complete the collected works of a particular author, or a volume of one of the canonical collections. For updates on the status of these texts, and of new data, please visit this website frequently.