This paper aims to provide an overview for the main project details of the China Academic Digital Library (CADL) with focused introduction on China Academic Library and Information System (CALIS), China Academic Digital Library and Information System (CADLIS), China‐America Digital Academic Library (CADAL) and China Academic Humanities and Social Sciences Library (CASHL).

The paper first gives a literary review on CADL and then analyzes the existed and existing problems of China digital library construction using graphical presentation and tabular comparison.

After reviewing CADL and the major related projects developed in the last decade, it is shown that the digital library (DL) construction effort in China is divided into three phases: concept introduction phase, technical exploration phase, and application deployment phase. The first phase of CADL gave a solid preparation in terms of concept introduction while the DL soon began to be recognized and accepted as a practical proposal among industries. In the second phase, various potential technologies for DL realization were substantially investigated, tested, and implemented. The related projects cover subjects including DL architecture, information retrieval, information description, digitization, e‐Book, Digital Rights Management, etc. During the last phase, standards, protocols and specifications that help DL to interoperate with one another were widely discussed and deployed.

This paper expatiates on the background, development and future trend of the CADL project for the first time in the literature. It is concluded that researchers and the public from China as well as other countries thus may benefit from both positive and improvable DL construction experiences.