The Reserve Collection contains books, articles, and supplementary materials recommended by teaching staff for the courses they teach in the current semester as well as past examination papers of some departments. Only one item may be borrowed at a time for a loan period ranging from 2 to 48 hours, so that more students may have access to these materials. The Reference Collections include materials such as the most recent editions of dictionaries, encyclopedias, gazetteers, yearbooks, handbooks, directories, indexes, bibliographies, atlases, and concordances. The English reference materials are shelved on Level 3. The Chinese reference materials and the Reference Hong Kong collection are located on Level 4.
All Reference books are for in-library use only.
English bound journals are shelved on Level 4, Level 5 and Level 6 while all Chinese bound journals are kept on Level 7. Current newspapers and periodical indexes are placed on Level 4. Back issues of newspapers are kept for the current two months. Microform backfiles are available for selective newspaper titles. There are over 79,000 items of multimedia materials in a variety of formats including CD-ROMs, VCDs, DVDs, CDs, computer software, videocassettes, laser discs, and audiocassettes.