The Asian Reading Room provides public access to more than 4 million items in over 130 Asian languages, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, Hindi, Thai, and many others. In the reading room, researchers can use the Asian Division’s collections of printed materials, microform, and databases and confer with reference librarians to answer research questions about the countries of East, South, and Southeast Asia.

Researchers interested in maps of Asian countries should contact the Geography and Map Reading Room; those interested in Western language newspapers from Asia should contact the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room; and those interested in law should contact the Law Library.