The NSL has over 2,40,000 printed collection of S&T documents which includes monographs, bound volumes of journals, reports, theses/dissertations, standards, and patents etc. The NSL's collection policy is to build resources with an emphasis on high end R&D reference sources, Indian S&T publications, foreign language dictionaries, library and information science, information & communication technology, computer science, conference proceedings, technical reports and other sources relevant to S&T community of the country.