Multicultural bulk loans

Last updated:  25 October 2024

The State Library has collections of books in 43 community languages and English as a Second Language (ESL) resources. NSW public libraries can borrow a bulk loan from the State Library free of charge.  

For information about the size, age and usage of the collections see the 2023/2024 report.

What can your library borrow?

Public libraries can borrow bulk loans from multicultural material in 43 languages and English as a Second Language (ESL) resources.

Multicultural collections

Each language collection has:

  • adult fiction in a range of genres, where available
  • adult non-fiction, including cookbooks, history, psychology, biographies, society and more
  • children's board books, picture books and chapter books, and non-fiction across a range of subjects
  • bilingual books in selected languages
  • Vox Books (junior bilingual print books with an audio recording built in so users can listen and read along) - limited to 2 per bulk loan
  • audiobooks and a small number of large print books are available in some languages.

Available languages and formats

Books
  • Arabic
  • Bengali
  • Bulgarian
  • Burmese
  • Chinese
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • Finnish
  • French
  • German
  • Greek
  • Gujarati
  • Hebrew
  • Hungarian
  • Hindi
  • Indonesian
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Macedonian
  • Maltese
  • Nepalese
  • Persian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Punjabi
  • Russian
  • Serbian
  • Sinhalese
  • Slovak
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Tagalog
  • Tamil
  • Telugu
  • Thai
  • Tibetan
  • Turkish
  • Ukrainian
  • Urdu
  • Vietnamese
Large print
  • Chinese
  • French
  • German
  • Hungarian
  • Italian
  • Spanish
  • Urdu
Audiobooks
  • Chinese
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • Finnish
  • French
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hungarian
  • Italian
  • Polish
  • Russian
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Vietnamese
Vox books
  • Arabic
  • Chinese
  • French
  • German
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Korean
  • Russian
  • Spanish
  • Tagalog
  • Ukrainian
  • Urdu
  • Vietnamese

English as a Second Language (ESL) collection

This collection is designed to support the independent learning of English, with a focus on beginner and intermediate level ESL resources in both book and audio format. 

The collection has a large number of readers, bilingual dictionaries, industry specific resources and English for specific language speakers. 

Requesting a multicultural bulk loan

Use this form to request bulk loans of:

  • multicultural material in 43 languages
  • ESL resources

You can request ten, twenty or thirty items for a loan period of three or six months.  

Request a bulk loan

Check or update your bulk loan request

  • Contact the bulk loans team to check the progress or update your multicultural bulk loan request.
  • Sign in to your library account and see what's on loan, what's overdue and renew applicable items.

Contact the bulk loans team

Email: mc.bulk.loans@sl.nsw.gov.au 

Networking

  • Join the mcbulkloans email list to connect with other NSW public library staff who work directly with multicultural bulk loans.

Purchasing collections - LOTE and ESL

The Public Library Services team can provide advice on the purchase of materials in languages other than English (LOTE) and English as a Second Language (ESL) from suppliers in Australia and overseas.  

Contact Shauna Miller (Monday to Thursday), Coordinator Multicultural Purchasing Cooperative on (02) 9272 1540, or email shauna.miller@sl.nsw.gov.au for more information.