  We present a spectroscopic library of late spectral type stellar templates in
the near-IR range 2.15-2.42microns, at R=5300-5900 resolution, oriented to
support stellar kinematics studies in external galaxies, such as the direct
determination of the masses of supermassive black-holes in nearby active (or
non-active) galaxies. The combination of high spectral resolution and
state-of-the-art instrumentation available in 8-m class telescopes has made the
analysis of circumnuclear stellar kinematics using the near-IR CO band heads
one of the most used techniques for such studies, and this library aims to
provide the supporting datasets required by the higher spectral resolution and
larger spectral coverage currently achieved with modern near-IR spectrographs.
Examples of the application for kinematical analysis are given for data
obtained with two Gemini instruments, but the templates can be easily adjusted
for use with other near-IR spectrographs at similar or lower resolution. The
example datasets are also used to revisit the "template mismatch" effect and
the dependence of the velocity dispersion values obtained from the fitting
process with the characteristics of the stellar templates. The library is
available in electronic form from the Gemini web pages (link above).
