The Asian Library/Centre opened in 1960. It was dedicated to holding a research collection of Asian language materials, initially as the Asian Studies division of the Main Library (now the Irving K Barber Learning Centre). The collection is now located inside the Asian Centre, which opened in 1981. Represented in its resources are Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Persian, Indonesian across many disciplines, with a strong focus on humanities and social sciences.
Sous-fonds consists of administrative records organized into files by year. Files contains correspondence, annual reports, meeting minutes, staffing schedules and work plans.