Approximately 40 newspapers and magazines are currently subscribed, and 25 others are being received as gift.

There are back issues, including many bound volumes, of the major Nepali newspapers, mostly dating from around 1980 (2037 BS), and of Nepali magazines and journals spanning the past 4 decades. A few Nepali periodicals date back to the 1940’s. Many are literary magazines such as Madhu Parka, Juhi, and Damuna, but other holdings of historic interest include early issues of the Nepali Law Review, Sipahi, the journal of the Royal Nepal Army, Ramjham, a current affairs magazine, and Prashashan, journal of Nepali administration.

The section also has many journals from Hem Raj Pandey’s collection, dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The majority were published in India. English titles include the Calcutta Review, the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, the Modern Review, the Theosophist, the Vedic, and many others. There are also many Hindi and Urdu journals from the same period, including some long runs. These holdings are a goldmine of largely unexploited material, of special interest to students and researchers of studies relating to the Indian Subcontinent.

The Periodicals Section has suffered greatly from under-funding over the years, in spite of the fact that the NNL spends more than 50% of its book fund on periodicals. Without adequate budget to maintain subscriptions, the majority of the holdings are now discontinued titles, and it has only been possible to continue binding a few key Nepali newspapers and journals. The very many new Nepali periodical titles which have appeared in the last decade are hardly represented at all in the NNL’s holdings, and many back issues and short-lived titles may have already been lost to the nation.