The National Library is the national library

National library

A national library is a library specifically established by the government of a country to serve as the preeminent repository of information for that country. Unlike public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books...

 of Vanuatu

Vanuatu

Vanuatu , officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.Vanuatu was...

. Located within the Vanuatu Cultural Centre

Vanuatu Cultural Centre

The Vanuatu Cultural Centre , founded in 1959, is the national cultural centre of Vanuatu. It is located in Port Vila...

 in Port Vila

Port Vila

Port Vila is the capital and largest city of Vanuatu. Situated on the south coast of the island of Efate, in Shefa Province, the city population at last was 29,356, an increase of 55% on the previous census result . This suggests a 2007 population of about 40,000 or around 65% of the province's...

, it contains about 15,000 books and serves both as a national repository for "rare and special" material, and as a lending library

Public library

A public library is a library that is accessible by the public and is generally funded from public sources and operated by civil servants. There are five fundamental characteristics shared by public libraries...

. It was established in April 2004.

The Library possesses two "special collections", one devoted to Vanuatu and the other to other parts of the Pacific

Pacific Islands

The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania, although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago....

. It holds "some 500 rare items" about Vanuatu, primarily a collection of rare books. Its "rare and special" items include "anthropological

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

 and archaeological

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 materials, art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

 and arts references, autobiographical records and biographies, a large section of works on the languages of Vanuatu

Languages of Vanuatu

Vanuatu has three official languages, English, French, and Bislama, a creole language evolved from English. Bislama is the first language of many urban ni-Vanuatu, that is, the residents of Port Vila and Luganville. It is the most common second language elsewhere in the Vanuatu islands...

, mission histories, oral traditions, cultural, historical and political records, journals, newspapers and periodicals".

Anne Naupa serves as Chief Librarian.