National Library of Bhutan (Thimphu, Bhutan)

The National Library of Bhutan (NLB) was established in 1967 with the primary objective of collecting and preserving mainly ancient Bhutanese written and printed resources. Our multi-functional library can now pride itself on being a modern library with a number of service and research facilities. It accommodates a large and steadily growing collection of manuscripts, books, scriptures and written documents as well as a large number of handcarved wooden blocks for printing traditional religious books.In particular the NLB holds one of the largest treasuries of Mahayana Buddhist literature in the world. Most of this material is written in the classical "Dharma Language" (chos skad ), which was for well over a millenium the lingua franca of the Himalayan and Central Asian Buddhist world. The library also holds a representative collection of English and western language books mainly related to the Himalayas, Bhutan and Buddhism.