The Council of Planning Librarians (CPL) is an international organization of librarians, information specialists, planners, researchers and educators. CPL exchanges and disseminates information relating to urban and rural communities and to planning issues, for use by professionals in public and private sector organizations and institutions.

The CPL seeks to foster excellence in planning and related fields by:

• Providing a network of information providers seeking solutions to questions raised in the course of their work.
• Providing programs and services that meet educational and professional development needs of information providers.
• Offering high quality publications that facilitate access to information needed by students, researchers and practitioners.
• Encouraging development of appropriate information resources and useful technologies.
• Recruiting individuals to careers that provide information services to professionals and students.

The CPL Archives are currently held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Established in 1963, the UIUC Archives includes 16,722 cubic feet of office records, publications and personal papers from the University and the Urbana-Champaign campus. The Archives is a unifying influence which recognizes and strengthens faculty and student ties to the university as a scholarly community. While it is most useful for modern American intellectual, cultural and social history, it contains research material for the educator, political scientist, sociologist, economist, and journalist. It is especially strong in the history of science and technology, agriculture, architecture, athletics, librarianship, education and student life.

The UIUC Archives is also the major North American research center for the study of the history of librarianship. The archives of the University and of over 12 external associations, including the Council of Planning Librarians Archives, provide researchers with invaluable documents relating to the history of the organization and dissemination of information in the United States, including the role of professional organizations in national and international events, and the history of prominent librarians and library schools.