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South Asian Collection: Asian Collections at the Library of Congress

Newspapers & Periodicals

The Asian Division’s South Asian collection contains approximately 6,900 titles of newspapers and other periodical publications in South Asian languages, all of which are accessible in the Asian Reading Room. Please note that many more English-language newspapers and periodicals are available through the Newspaper & Current Periodical Reading Room, while other types of serials, like academic journals and government reports, are available through the Main Reading Room. In addition to serial publications in print, the Library of Congress provides onsite access to a number of subscription databases for e-journals. Browse the titles of e-journals in the Library of Congress Electronic Resources Online Catalog. If you have any questions about a particular issue or article in a newspaper, periodical, or other type of serial, please contact reference staff through Ask a Librarian.

Remember that the "Item Availability" section at the bottom of a bibliographic record in the Library of Congress Online Catalog will indicate where materials are accessible at the Library of Congress. You can also use this section to learn what issues of a newspaper or serial publication are available at the Library of Congress, as in the example below.

Item Availability section of the online catalog record.

Newspapers in South Asian Languages

Image of black and white microfilm scan of cover of newspaper, the Gujarati, in Gujarati text.
Gujarātī [microform] = The Gujarati. Cover of January 2, 1881 issue. Library of Congress Asian Division. View bibliographic record in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.

The South Asian collection contains around 275 titles of newspapers in South Asian languages from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

For the list of these newspapers, please see the research guide, South Asian Newspapers at the Library of Congress. All of these titles are available on microfilm and accessible on microfilm readers in the Asian Reading Room.

The collection is especially rich after the establishment of the Library's overseas acquisitions office in New Delhi, India in 1962. In addition, several titles have issues from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, such as The Gujarati (issues from December 1880) and Anandabazar Patrika (from March 1922).

Locating Other Periodicals in South Asian Languages

In addition to newspapers, the South Asian collection contains a variety of serial publications, such as academic journals, popular magazines, government publications, and more. Here's a quick way to find serials from a South Asian country or in a particular language:

  • In the Library of Congress Online Catalog, go to Search Options and select Keyword Search.
  • Enter the name of a country in the "Search" box. For example, enter "Pakistan," as shown in the example below.
  • Add a range of dates for more targeted results, such as searching for titles with issues "between 1950 and 1966" as shown in the example below.
  • Select "Add Limits" to specify your search even further:
    - Place of Publication: Pakistan
    - Type of Material: Periodical or Newspaper
    - Language: Urdu.
Image of screenshot from Library of Congress Online Catalog with text in search boxes to search for Urdu serials from Pakistan.
Screenshot of using the Library of Congress Online Catalog to search for Urdu serials from Pakistan between 1950 and 1965.