diff --git a/local-repo/README.md b/local-repo/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d44e3ea818
--- /dev/null
+++ b/local-repo/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+This library is still needed to support some spotmatching, such as `encounters/encounterSpotVisualizer.jsp`, which will fail without it.
+
+It also seems to somehow be utilized in the _filter_ in `web.xml` which uses `/di/ImgFilter/`. Without this filter, tomcat will run and then
+fail with cryptic messages in secondary logs.
diff --git a/local-repo/dilib/dilib/1.0/dilib-1.0.jar b/local-repo/dilib/dilib/1.0/dilib-1.0.jar
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..63a1d40f77
Binary files /dev/null and b/local-repo/dilib/dilib/1.0/dilib-1.0.jar differ
diff --git a/local-repo/dilib/dilib/1.0/dilib-1.0.pom b/local-repo/dilib/dilib/1.0/dilib-1.0.pom
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..de3fe47a58
--- /dev/null
+++ b/local-repo/dilib/dilib/1.0/dilib-1.0.pom
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+<project>
+  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
+  <name>dilib</name>
+  <groupId>dilib</groupId>
+  <artifactId>dilib</artifactId>
+  <version>1.0</version>
+  <packaging>jar</packaging>
+</project>
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 55194dc6b5..e4aabf9301 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -358,6 +358,14 @@
       <version>3.11</version>
     </dependency>
 
+    <!-- wildbook local jars, not in public maven repos -->
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>dilib</groupId>
+      <artifactId>dilib</artifactId>
+      <version>1.0</version>
+    </dependency>
+    <!-- end local repo dependencies-->
+
     <dependency>
       <groupId>org.junit.jupiter</groupId>
       <artifactId>junit-jupiter-api</artifactId>