South Asia Collections

The South Asian collection of the University of TexasLibraries compromises material covering the countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan. The majority of the material in our collections was acquired through the P.L. 480 Program, and the South Asia Cooperative Acquisitions Program, both of which administrated by the Library of Congress, but there has also been significant additions through direct purchasing and gifts. We actively collect material in all formats. Our South Asian Collection also participates in cooperative collection development efforts, such as the South Asia Open Archives Initiative (SAOA) and the South Asia Cooperative Collection Development Workshops, through which we are developing a niche specialization in Popular and Pulp Fiction.

Our South Asian Languages Collection is numerically the second largest in the nation. It encompasses all South Asian languages although we currently actively collect material in Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. Among some of our most distinctive material are the collections in Malayalam, Sanskrit and Urdu, as well as the emerging collection of Popular and Pulp Fiction. On campus, the Harry Ransom Center houses archival and manuscript material of South Asian authors such as Mulk Raj Anand, Anita Desai, E.M. Forester, Zulfikar Ghose, William Jones, Rudyard Kipling, R.K. Narayan, and Rabindranath Tagore, among others.