What are multicultural bulk loans?
The State Library has collections of books in 43 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.
Requests for bulk loans can be placed using the multicultural bulk loan request form. 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 |
| Russian | Serbian | Sinhalese | Slovak | Spanish | Swedish | Tagalog |
| Tamil | Telugu | Thai | Tibetan | Turkish | Ukrainian | Urdu |
| Vietnamese |
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 books including
- board books
- picture books
- chapter books
- 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:
| Audiobooks | Vox Books | Large print |
| Chinese | Arabic | Chinese |
| Croatian | Chinese | French |
| Czech | French | German |
| Danish | German | Hungarian |
| Dutch | Hebrew | Italian |
| Finnish | Hindi | Spanish |
| French | Korean | Urdu |
| German | Russian | |
| Greek | Spanish | |
| Hungarian | Tagalog | |
| Italian | Ukrainian | |
| Polish | Urdu | |
| Russian | Vietnamese | |
| Spanish | ||
| Swedish | ||
| Vietnamese |
You can use these these tools and promotional resources to promote the bulk loan collections to your community.
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.