(The following is a post by Joshua Kueh, Head of the South Asian, Southeast Asian, Tibetan, and Mongolian Section, Asian Division)
The Library of Congress is home to significant collections of rare and unique material related to Southeast Asia. At the Asian Reading Room, there are over 1,850 items—Balinese palm-leaf manuscripts, Tai illustrated folding books, Batak divinatory texts, original nineteenth-century letters from Malay rulers, missionary works from Vietnam and the Philippines, and much more. Venturing beyond the Asian Reading Room to other reading rooms at the Library, one will find treasures such as the first book published in the Philippines (Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room), one of the few extant maps from Central Thailand before the mid-nineteenth century (Geography and Map Reading Room), and the correspondence of Mongkut, King of Siam (Manuscript Reading Room). With so much to discover, librarians at the Asian Division have put together two research guides to give users a sense of the types of rare Southeast Asian materials available at the Library and how to find them.
The research guide “Southeast Asian Rare Books and Manuscripts in the Asian Reading Room at the Library of Congress” provides an overview of Southeast Asian rare books and manuscripts accessible at the Asian Reading Room. The guide organizes materials by language—such as Balinese, Batak, Bugis, Burmese, Chin, Hanunuo (Mangyan), Javanese, Karen, Khmer, Lao, Malay, Tagalog, Thai, Vietnamese, and others—and includes summaries and listings of items. As not all of these items have been added to the Library’s online catalog, the guide is a valuable way to discover materials that might otherwise be hard to find. One example is a rare handwritten copy of an early version of the “Hikayat Abdullah,” a famous Malay work. It was copied in 1843 by a Bugis scribe named Husin, who was a colleague of the author, Munsyi Abdullah (1796-1854).
Besides uncatalogued holdings, another category of items at the Library that might be less widely known is rare or unique European-language material related to Southeast Asia. In different reading rooms at the Library, one will find documentation on the region in languages such as English, Dutch, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. Over the course of five hundred years, Europeans and Americans, at different times, came to rule large parts of Southeast Asia. During those years of colonialism, they left behind a large body of textual and illustrated works: government reports, travel accounts, dictionaries, grammars, religious texts, works of literature, laws, maps, and newspapers. For example, in the Geography and Map Reading Room, one will find a map of the island of Balanguingui in the Sulu Archipelago in the Philippines that documents the Spanish expedition there in 1848 to eliminate pirate strongholds and solidify the Spanish position in relation to the Sultanate of Sulu. This map, which is also available to view and study on the Library’s website, provides representations of coastlines and various types of Indigenous vessels involved in the fighting. Maps such as these provide windows into local material culture and battle strategies and serve as reference points for studying changes in geography over time.
In addition to works solely in European languages, the Library holds bilingual or multilingual titles, many of these being language studies, dictionaries, or religious works. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division holds at least 40 texts of this kind. A notable example, mentioned above, is the “Doctrina Christiana.” Printed in 1593, it is a bilingual Tagalog-Spanish text, which shows one of the earliest examples of Tagalog printed in Romanized form and in Baybayin script, an Indic-derived writing system used by the Tagalog-speaking population prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in the Philippines in the 1500s. Those studying language translation and communication in intercultural contexts in Southeast Asia will likely find such works of value in their research. To learn more about these texts and European-language material at the Library, see the guide “Southeast Asian Rare Materials in European Languages at the Library of Congress.”
If you would prefer to watch a video about Southeast Asian rare collections at the Library of Congress, please see the following recording of a webinar on the topic:
- Webinar: Southeast Asian Rare Collections at the Library of Congress (February 12, 2025)
As this post suggests, there are significant collections of rare and unique Southeast Asian material at the Library of Congress. Reference librarians stand ready to assist you with queries about these collections.
Before visiting to access rare materials, please remember to contact reference staff through Ask a Librarian to make an appointment. While we very much welcome researchers to use our rare collections, please note that there is a review process for approving requests. For more details on using rare materials at the Asian Reading Room, please see the Asian Division’s rare book policy.
In addition to our rich Southeast Asian rare collections, the Library holds thousands of Southeast Asian titles in approximately 100 languages or dialects. To learn more, please see the following guide.
To use non-rare Southeast Asian material at the Asian Reading Room, you do not need an appointment, but we certainly invite your questions ahead of your visit. Please feel free to contact us via Ask a Librarian.
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