The South Asia Division collection of the U-M library is strong in the humanities and the social sciences, with notable secondary collections in other fields — including law, medicine, public health, architecture, natural sciences, and mathematics. As with the other Area Divisions of the Graduate Library, the South Asia Collection is defined both geographically and culturally. Our division focuses on the following South Asia countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet. In addition, we are concerned with South Asian diasporic communities, be they in the United States, Europe, Africa, or elsewhere.
In all, the South Asia collection consists of over 300,000 titles in various formats, including over 70,000 monographs in South Asian languages, over 1,500 current serial titles, and a growing collection of feature films. Notable holdings of the collection include complete runs of newspapers extending over one hundred years; complete Census of India reports going back to the 19th century; imperial and district gazetteers; archeological surveys and epigraphical reports; a Linguistic Survey of India; missionary archives on microfilm; extensive sets on religious literature (including Buddhist Tripitaka — 120 and 72 volume sets published in the U.S. and Taipei respectively); various vernacular bi-lingual and multilingual dictionaries, and more.
