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Chinese Studies Resources - by type

Detailed directory of resources in Chinese Studies listed by type of resource

Bianjiang Lishi Dili Shujuku = 邊疆歷史地理數據庫 (Historical Geography of (China’s) Borderlands)

This database has two parts. The first part called 史地經典文庫 collects full-text historical textual material on the Chinese borderlands dating from the Ming Dynasty to the Republic in the punctuated editions by Zhonghua shuju. The second part 邊疆史料文庫 gives access to Republican monographs, periodicals, government gazettes and other documents on the history of the border regions.

The original printed text is displayed side-by-side with a fully searchable digital edition of the text for comparison. Downloading is not possible. Copying (with a maximum of 200 characters at a time (after signing in)) is, but only using the pop-up copy function, not the usual browser function.

To use the database you have to sign in with a user account.

You have the following two choices:

1) You can use one of four generic Princeton accounts with the following details

Username:
plsdguji4@163.com          
plsdguji3@163.com
plsd2@163.com
plsd1@163.com

Password (for all of the 4 accounts above): 123123

2) You can register a personal account

To sign in for both options please choose 登录 on the upper left and then switch to 邮箱登录 on the following page (right under the large 登录 button)..

Please note: This database does currently not fully support the Firefox Browser!

China Comprehensive Gazetteers = 中國綜合方志庫

This China Comprehensive Gazetteers database has been produced in conjunction with the National Library of China. It includes 7,000  Chinese local gazetteers spanning eight centuries 1229-1949.

Chinese gazetteers are a very rich resource available for researching China in multiple aspects, including its political history, literature, and religion, as well as the biographies of famous personages, its culture, economic development and, of course, its geography and natural history.  Because of its varied content, organized to principles also varying from title to title, full-text search capabilities change the way they can be used. The titles included in this particular database (approximately 7,000 titles, 100,000 volumes) have for a large part been compiled using Optical Character Recognition. Because of this automated process, which occasionally produces errors, the 4,000 titles which overlap with the Zhongguo fang zhi ku database, are probably best used in the latter (with much stricter authority control.) However, the China Comprehensive Gazetteers database includes at least 2,000 additional full-text searchable titles.

CrossAsia Integrated Text Repository (ITR)

A discovery service for full-text cross-database searching in a number of East Asian Studies databases and full-text searching in printed books.

Note: Not all databases covered in this search engine are currently subscribed to by Princeton. The title list below shows titles that Princeton has access to (in green), database for which Princeton currently uses other providers than the ones linked from Crossasia ITR (in orange), and database currently not available in Princeton (in red).

Please use the grey “Provider Link” to gain direct access to the content from the search results. Direct access will only be available for databases currently subscribed to by Princeton. The direct links will only work on campus and via VPN. Princeton NetID is not supported!

The system currently includes:

Adam Matthew - China America Pacific
Adam Matthew - China Trade & Politics
Adam Matthew - Foreign Office Files China & Japan
Adam Matthew - Meiji Japan (only metadata)
Airusheng - Local Gazetteer (1, 2)
Brill - The Japan Chronicle (1902-1940)
Brill - Mobilizing East Asia (1931-1954)
Brill - North China Daily News
Brill - North China Herald
Brill - North China Standard (1919-1927)
Diaolong - Classical Works of Japan
Diaolong - Daozang jiyao
Diaolong - Dunhuang shiliao
Diaolong - Gujin tushu jicheng
Diaolong - Qingdai shiliao
Diaolong - Sibu congkan
Diaolong - Sibu beiyao
Diaolong - Siku quanshu
Dioalong - Yongle dadian
Diaolong - Xuxiu Siku quanshu
Diaolong – Zhengton Daozang
Diaolong – Zhongguo Fangzhi yiji
Diaolong – Zhongguo Fangzhi xuji
East View - China Comprehensive Gazetteers
Gale - China and the Modern World: Records of the Maritime Customs Service of China (1854-1949)
Gale - Missionary, Sinology, and Literary Periodicals (1817-1949)
Renmin Ribao
SBB digital: Asian language collection (selection)
SBB digital: Western language Asia collection
Ta Kung Pao 大公報 (1902-1949)

Ariti - eBooks (Princeton can acquire individual titles upon request)
Brill - The Chinese Student Monthly (1906-1931)
CNKI - eBooks (Princeton can acquire individual titles upon request)
Fulltext search in print books (links to catalog of the State Library Berlin)

Adam Matthew - Area Studies: China and Southeast Asia (content mostly available in microform)
Adam Matthew - Area Studies: Japan (content mostly available in microform)
ISEAS Publishing - Asian Studies eBooks
NLC - Early Twentieth Century Chinese Books (1912-1949) (Many titles available in Princeton via CADAL)

Series of Geography, History and Customs of Manchuria-Mongolia DB

Zhongguo fangzhi ku = 中國方志庫

There are six databases available to Princeton users from the Chinese company Erudition (Airusheng); note that the other databases listed on the Erudition overview page, hatched out, are not available currently. To arrive at the overview page, please select Ancient Classics on the left and then choose login. Once on the specific database's home page, click on jinru (enter).

We have only one concurrent user for each database, and often demand is high; so please logout of the database when finished, in order to open that slot for the next person as soon as possible.

This database, when finished, will include more than 10,000 pre-modern local gazetteers in the broad sense of the word, thus not only gazetteers of jurisdictions, but also gazetteers of temples, mountains etc. There are many ways of searching this full-text database, including by region, title or period, but at the same time, the form of the original, including maps or tables, is preserved, and shown side-by side. Downloading and printing is possible; individual note-taking in this version is disabled.

As of 2021, three sets of 2,000 each of the planned five parts are available.