Asian library

Online catalog

The Asian Library of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, established in 1984, houses a collection of works on East Asia with a focus on the spread of Christianity (particularly Catholicism) and a special emphasis on the history of the Paris Foreign Missions Society.

It currently holds a collection of over 20,000 titles (monographs and journal articles):

• 15,000 books in French on Asia and the Far East, from India to Japan, covering the history of Christian missions, the linguistic and ethnographic work of missionaries, and including a collection of rare books (17th–18th centuries) comprising 350 titles (edifying letters, travel accounts, the Rites Controversy, etc.)
• 200 periodicals on the Far East and the mission
• 800 offprints (including a fund of 273 articles written by Jean Filliozat on India)
• 300 titles published by the “Nazareth” MEP printing press in Hong Kong (1884-1954)
• 1,000 works in Chinese on Christianity, literature, linguistics, and history
• 1,000 works in Japanese on Christianity, history, and linguistics, including the Joseph Dautremer fund (more than 400 titles – the equivalent of 2,000 volumes – from the Edo and Meiji eras)
• 1,000 works in Vietnamese on Christianity and linguistics, including 120 han-nôm documents (see the catalogue) and 280 works in Central Vietnam languages (Bahnar, Röglai, Jarai…)
• 600 works in Cambodian including more than a hundred works printed by Fr. Guesdon in the 1900’s on Cambodian popular literature
• 31 titles in Tibetan, mostly Christians
• Books written in South Indian languages (especially Tamil), Laotian, Burmese, Korean, Thai (these books are currently being classified).