What are multicultural bulk loans?
The State Library has collections of books in 42 community languages, which can be borrowed by public libraries on behalf of clients. This is a free service.
How can your library borrow a bulk loan from the State Library
Public libraries can borrow a bulk loan of books from the State Library free of charge. There are two ways your library can access the service:
- libraries who borrow from the community language collections heavily can have a large loan from a language for 6 months (up to 100 items depending on which language)
- requests for bulk loans can be placed using the multicultural bulk loan request form on an 'as needed' basis. You can request ten, twenty or thirty items for a loan period of three or six months.
What can your library borrow
Public libraries can borrow bulk loans from collections in the following community languages:
| Arabic | Bengali | Bulgarian | Burmese | Chinese | Croation | Czech |
| Danish | Dutch | Finnish | French | German | Greek | Gujarati |
| Hebrew | Hungarian | Hindi | Indonesian | Italian | Japanese | Korean |
| Macedonian | Maltese | Nepalese | Persian | Polish | Portuguese |
Punjabi |
| Romanian | Russian | Serbian | Sinhalese | Slovak | Spanish | Swedish |
| Tagalog | Tamil | Thai | Turkish | Ukrainian | Urdu | Vietnamese |
Each language collection has adult fiction and non-fiction books across a range of genres and subjects. Children's books are also available, including board books, picture books, chapter books, non-fiction and bilingual books in selected languages.
Audiobooks and large print books are available in some languages:
| Audiobooks | Large print |
| Chinese | Chinese |
| Croatian | Danish |
| Czech | Dutch |
| Dutch | French |
| Finnish | German |
| French | Italian |
| German | Spanish |
| Greek | |
| Hungarian | |
| Italian | |
| Polish | |
| Russian | |
| Spanish | |
| Swedish | |
| Vietnamese |
Check the Community Language Directory for public library holdings in community languages.
English as a Second Language (ESL) Collection
Public libraries can also request a bulk loan from our 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. Requests for ESL material can be placed via the multicultural bulk loan request form.