365
microforms, audiovisual materials, and CD-ROMs, covering oriental subjects and cultures, in varied languages, and has become a fine reference source. Some of the books provide eye-witness accounts of China over the past years. Many of these are old and out of print, available to the public only in this Library.
The Society has also established exchange programmes with many learned societies all over the world. The Journal forms the basis of the Library and sufficient numbers are printed for exchange. The Journal has a book review section which helps to bring in a useful nucleus of publications. Of high academic standards and interest, there has been an increasing demand for it from members and scholars overseas. The Collection is growing steadily as a result of the many useful exchanges established with other institutions.
Collection access
Post-1900 materials are available for loan. For security and preservation of rare and valuable materials, pre-1900 materials (with selected rare post-1900 materials) which might be difficult to replace are only for in-house use. The collection is also open to the academic community, students and the general public as it is the intention of the Society to aid scholarly research on China and the Far East.
Bibliographic aids
To facilitate the use of the Society's Journal, Mr. H.A. Rydings compiled two indexes, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Index to Vols. 1-10 (1961-1970) and Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Index to Vols. 11 - 20 (1971-1980), in 1972 and 1983 respectively. These two indexes combine, in one alphabetical sequence, entries for authors and subjects of articles in the 20 volumes of the Journal and cover the contents of the annual Journal from 1961-1970 and 1971-1980.
In addition, the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society is one of the journals enlisted in the University of Hong Kong Libraries' digital project on Hong Kong Journals Online which contains scholarly journals published in Hong Kong. This database is open to access worldwide and allows browsing of table of contents