National Collection

The National Collection forms the core collection of the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library with over 1.7 million items. The National Collection aims to have a comprehensive collection of publications about Singapore, in the four official languages. Its strength lies in the areas of history, politics, economics, socio-cultural development and the arts. In addition to print publications, the National Collection also includes original and unpublished materials, both in physical and digital formats. These include manuscripts, typescripts, photographs, maps, microfilms, audio-visual materials, ephemera, registers and records.

The National Collection is supported by the Legal Deposit function of the National Library Board Act, which requires two copies of every physical publication and one copy of every digital publication distributed in Singapore to be deposited.

The collection is a repository of the creative and intellectual output of Singapore with print works that span the diverse fields of literary and visual arts, business, social sciences and humanities. Of note are research materials on the social and economic policies of Singapore, in particular government publications such as the official gazettes, parliamentary reports, select committee reports, transcripts of selected ministerial speeches, reports of government departments and ministries as well as master and concept plans. These resources address various aspects of national development such as urban planning, healthcare, education, economic strategy, population, tourism, public housing and so on.

Accessing the National Collection

On-site Access
The collection is distributed across Level 8 to 11 of the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library according to subject categories.

Level	Collections
8	Arts Collection Social Science & Humanities Collection
9	Chinese Collection Malay Collection Tamil Collection
11	Singapore & Southeast Asian Collection

The public may request for RCLOS items online at http://catalogue.nlb.gov.sg. Walk-in requests may also be carried out at Level 11 counter from 10am to 7pm.

Digital Access
Selected materials have been digitised and made accessible on:

Featured Collection

South East Asian Collection

Find out more about the history, literature, politics and government, and people and culture of countries in South East Asia. The South East Asian Collection documents works on ASEAN countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam, with a particular emphasis on social sciences and humanities.