The Asian Division of the Library of Congress has custody of more than 4 million items in many Asian languages and dialects. These materials in print, manuscript, microform, and digital formats are organized into the following collections: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Tibetan. Visitors and researchers can access these collections and speak with reference librarians for the Asian collections in the Asian Reading Room.

This guide presents short overviews of the Asian-language materials in the Asian collections. Please be advised that there are important materials related to Asian countries and languages throughout the Library of Congress, such as the Law Library; the Prints and Photographs Division; the Geography and Map Division; the Serials and Government Publications Division; and the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, among others. Books, journals, and other materials from and about Asian countries in English, as well as many European languages, are accessible in the Library’s Main Reading Room. For help locating materials at the Library of Congress, please use Ask a Librarian.

To learn more about the history of the Asian collections, see the 2007 edition of the Library of Congress Asian Collections: An Illustrated Guide.