The Royal Asiatic Society’s collections were established with the founding of the Society in 1823. Many early members were generous benefactors, and throughout the Society’s history additions have been made to the collections.
Today, the collections provide an important resource for anyone wishing to study and gain further understanding of Asian cultures and history.
We have material, dating from the 12th century right up to the present, covering all of Asia and many allied countries, with Indian and Persian cultures being particularly well-represented. Our holdings include printed material, manuscripts, paintings, drawings, photographs, maps, and archives. Our archives incorporate the Society’s own records as well as the personal papers of some of the most prominent British scholars of Asian history, languages, and cultures.
All our collections can be consulted in our dedicated Reading Room in our premises in London during our advertised opening hours. We also have a Digital Library which provides free, worldwide online access to some of our most important and inspiring collections.
Librarian: Edward Weech
Contact: ew@royalasiaticsociety.org
Archivist: James Liu
Contact: jl@royalasiaticsociety.org
Catalogues
Most of our collections are searchable online. Our catalogued manuscripts, printed books, pamphlets, artworks, photographs and objects are described in our online Library catalogue, while our archival collections are described in the online Archive catalogue.
Please contact the Librarian or the Archivist if you cannot find the material you require for your research, as some is still uncatalogued.
Accessing the Collections
Anyone is welcome to visit our Reading Room to consult our collections during our opening times on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, form 10am to 5pm. Access is by appointment only. Please email the Librarian or the Archivist to make an appointment, and list the item(s) that you would like to consult. We may ask for an explanation of your research if you request to see particularly rare or fragile material.
When you first visit the Reading Room, please bring physical photographic identification and proof of address. This is required to register as a reader and use our collections.
The Reading Room is located on the first floor of our building and is wheelchair accessible. Our building is located just a couple of minutes from Euston, Euston Square, and Warren Street stations, or a fifteen-minute walk from King’s Cross/St Pancras. Please find a map here.
*Christmas and New Year Closures*
Our Reading Room will be closed from Friday 19 December 2025 for Christmas and New Year breaks and reopen on Tuesday 6 January 2026.
Pay for Library Services
Collection Highlights
Our collections contain only two reels of film but they have been digitised and are also viewable here. They are of excavations carried our by Reginald Campbell-Thompson in Iraq in the early 1930s.
Digitized versions of the Shahnama of Muhammad Juki, copied in Herat between 1440 and 1445 and considered to be one of the finest Timurid manuscripts of the 15th century; the Gulistan of the poet Sa’di completed in 1583 in Fatehpur Sikri; and an autograph copy of Kitab-i Mathnawiyyat-i Zafar Khan copied in Lahore in 1663 are also available online on the Cambridge Digital Library Website.
The Thomas Manning Archive was purchased in 2015 with funding from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) and further support from the Arts Council England/Victoria and Albert Museum Purchase Grant Fund; the Friends of the National Libraries; and numerous private donations. We are grateful for their support in enabling the material to be kept together and made available for research. The archive has been digitized and is available on the Society’s Digital Library here, while the catalogue is now available on the Royal Asiatic Society archive catalogue.
For detailed information about our collections, see the following links:
Manuscripts | Archives | Printed Collections | Art Collections | Photo Collections