Rare Books

Macao Public Library house a collection of approximately 40,000 rare books, including Chinese and Western texts published before 1950 which are located at the Sir Robert Ho Tung Library and the Senado Library. The ‘Chinese Ancient Books Chamber’ (a rare- collections building) at Sir Robert Ho Tung Library currently has some 20,000 Chinese rare books, of which 16 are precious rare books from the Jiaye Book Library Tower previously collected by renowned modern bibliophile Liu Chenggan. Among these 16 books, the Manuscript of Siku Quanshu’s Synopsis by Weng Fanggang is of intrinsic value. Moreover, the Senado Library houses a collection of approximately 20,000 foreign ancient texts, varying from the 16th to 20th Century historical documents of the Portuguese presence in the Far East to literature of Portugal’s policy in its overseas colonies.