The Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Library (AMES Library) supports teaching and learning activities at the Faculty. Our collection is primarily in English and European languages, but we also have items in the languages taught at the Faculty.  They're mostly collected by the early scholars of the subjects, which may be of interest to researchers. Our collection covers the languages, literature, history, philosophy, art, archaeology, politics, and social anthropology of Asia and the Middle East from earliest times to the present.  The regional scope of the Library's print, media and online collections includes China, Japan, Korea and Central Asia, the Indian sub-continent (but not South-East Asia), and the Middle East (including publications on Islamic North Africa).

Research collection for the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies is available at the University Library. You can find the details in the Research section from this guide. 

Access to special collections and archives (updated on 12th December 2025)

All items stored in the basement storage have been relocated to temporary locations following our recent plumbing issues, and remain stored in the locations until further notice:

• Special collection (Israel Abraham, Owen Lattimore collection, including his uncatalogued archive)

• Journal issues and books which are marked as 'Basement Store' in the iDiscover catalogue

• All the archive collections

If you would like to consult items from the above collections, more information is available from 'The items moved to temporary locations' tab above.