They provide the primary gateways to the Library's foreign-language materials and culture groups. Each contains a specialized
reference collection that is open to researchers. Each reading room is staffed with its own area specialists and reference
librarians. Their linguistic proficiency and subject expertise enable them to provide valuable assistance to scholars and
to the general public concerning a great variety of cultural communities. Because of their broad knowledge about a culture,
the area specialists and reference librarians can also guide researchers to other reading rooms that contain special-format
material, such as films or sound recordings, on certain groups and individuals. The Visit/Contact page shows how to access items that are in both roman- and non- roman-script languages and in different formats.
It should be noted that research on particular cultural groups can be enriched by knowledge of their places of settlement,
prevalent occupations, and forms of cultural expression. This is particularly relevant in searching special-format collections
where materials may not have been indexed consistently by the ethnic group represented in them.