What we collect
Chinese Collection
See also: Find Chinese Material | Chinese Acquisitions List
The Chinese language collection of the National Library of Australia numbers some 260,000 volumes of monographs, 5,100 serial titles, 250 newspaper titles. This is the largest Chinese collection in Australia and has been assigned a high priority in the Library's collection development policy.
The emphasis of the collection is primarily on modern and contemporary China. The major strengths are in the subject fields of the social sciences, especially economics, statistics, politics and government, foreign relations and law; Chinese modern history (after 1911) and biography. There are also extensive holdings of Chinese series (cong shu), as well as materials on archaeology and fine arts..
In addition to an active purchasing program from the Greater China region major book exchange programs have been developed with the National Library of China in Beijing and the National Central Library in Taipei.
There are a number of valuable formed collections within the Chinese collection. They include the famous libraries of Walter Percival Yetts on Chinese archaeology and fine arts, of Fang Zhaoying on modern Chinese history, of the London Missionary Society on the Taiping Uprising, 1851-1864 and Christianity, of Walter Simon on Chinese language and literature, of Otto van der Sprenkel on Chinese history, of Wei Tongfang on Chinese literature, of Audrey Donnithorne on Chinese economic and agricultural affairs, from Sang Ye on post-1949 China, and the Australian Buddhist Library, donated by Eric Liao.
We actively cooperate with the Australian National University Library in particular areas of collecting, such as statistical yearbooks. The ANU - NLA Collection Cooperation Agreement on Chinese Provincial and Provincial Capital City Statistical Yearbooks specifies the collecting responsibilities of each library.
