The National Library of Bhutan (NLB) was established in 1967 with the primary objective of collecting and preserving mainly ancient Bhutanese written and printed resources.
The NLB holds one of the largest treasuries of Mahayana Buddhist literature in the world. Most of this material is written in the classical "Dharma Language" (chos skad ), which was for well over a millenium the lingua franca of the Himalayan and Central Asian Buddhist world. The library also holds a representative collection of English and western language books mainly related to the Himalayas, Bhutan and Buddhism.