The collections are composed of the books in western languages which were published in the ancient years or with some special significance, the collection of oriental studies beginning with O and published before 1980, part of the Deutschland-Institut (1931-1946, a cultural institution with Chinese and German scholars' participation) collection, part of Chinois-Franco University (1919-1950) collection whose majority is the French books from the School of Literature, China-related Microfilms & Microfiches in British and American Diplomatic Archives, etc.