Special materials include the valuable Puban collection- which contains traditional Chinese works before 1912, the Swann collection, Song Xuepeng collection, Jing Yi Zhai, Japanese government publications, research materials on Chinese Canadian settlement in British Columbia and the Pearl Delta Area as well as Japanese Canadian studies collections. The Asian Library's rare book collection, mainly from the Puban collection, ranks first in North America. The Chinese collection ranked third in North America in number of volumes at the time of publication of Endymion Wilkinson's "Chinese History: A Manual" in 2000.