The National Library of China (NLC) has opened 21 databases on its 中国古籍保护网 to the public.
Included are the following database covering only the collection of NLC (if not otherwise noted):
数字古籍 Digital Rare books
数字方志 Digital Gazetteers (Some of the items are offered with side-by side reading of the transcribed text. The text however is not full text searchable. Most of the gazetteers included here are already available at Princeton in a full-text searchable database China Comprehensive Gazetteers).
中华寻根网 China genealogical database (The database offers a sophisticated search system. It includes bibliographic information on almost 30,000 家谱, and gives reading access to more than 2,000 (probably mostly from the collections of Shanghai Library). It also provides an overview of family lineages for each family name and has biographical entries for 14,000 individuals. Over 6,000 gazetteers are also linked into this system which makes it quite a powerful tool for genealogical research).
赵城金藏 Zhaocheng Jin Tripitaka (This Buddhist canon was printed between about the ninth year of the Huangtong era of Xizong of the Jin dynasty and is therefore referred to as Jin Tripitaka. The Jin Tripitaka was based on the tenth-century Kaibao Tripitaka. It has great documentary value because many of the sutras in this edition of the canon are missing from other editions. The database only gives access to the scans. Princeton has access to a full-text searchable version of both the Qisha Song Tripitaka and the Zhaocheng Jin Tripitaka via the Fojiao Jingdian ku).
年画撷英 Chinese New Year prints
碑帖精华 Rubbings database (Particularly strong for the Tang and the Qing. Where available the date of the making of the rubbing is included in the database. The database allows full-text searching of the transcribed text!)
宋人文集 Collected works of the Song (focuses on first editions).
甲骨世界 Oracle Bones (Two sub-databases containing images of original oracle bones and rubbings of oracle bones).
西夏文献 Tangut texts (Mostly of Buddhist nature. The texts are cataloged by Chinese titles).
西夏论著 Tangut Studies Bibliography
前尘旧影 Historic photographs
徽州善本家谱 Collection of Huizhou Jiapu
中华医药典籍资源库（测试版）Classical works of Chinese Medicine (Beta)
法藏敦煌遗书 Dunhuang collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF)
云南图书馆古籍 Yunnan Library Rare Books
天津图书馆古籍 Tianjin Library Rare Books
上海图书馆家谱 Shanghai Library Jiapu collection
东文研汉籍影像库 Rare books from the Toyo Bunko
哈佛大学善本特藏 Shan ben from Harvard Yenching Library
中华古籍善本联合书目 Chinese Shanben Catalog (图录 of 3,481 editions of 善本 in Chinese and international collections. In most cases only the first page of the first juan is available for viewing. The information provided about the holding institutions is rather cryptic.)
Regrettably, NLC does not currently provide a central search index to all of the databases above. Most of the collections however are actually listed in the Guji faxian system. An empty search in this system will bring up a complete list of purely bibliographic entries and entries for scanned rare books from many libraries from China and beyond. Selecting the 开源 option allows browsing the free online collections of all libraries by subject (an extended 四库 classification). This function might in many cases provide better discovery options for the material in the free NLC collections that the actual databases above, but many of the links in Guji Faxian have not yet been update to the free version of the NLC databases.
This is a catalog of recent editions of classical Chinese texts published since 1949. It is a searchable PDF version of the print edition, available in the stacks at Z1029 .X56 2007. It may be viewed from the main computer cluster in the EAL.
The Zhongguo lidai dianji zongmu (Historical Book Catalogue of China) is a knowledge database of over 2 million Chinese classical works developed by the National Library of China and Peking University. For library holdings as such it may be better to use the Zhongguo guji shumu ziliaoku at Taibei; Princeton’s holdings e.g. are available in the latter, not in this database. The database uses traditional characters.
In addition to browsing the contents, the database is unique in allowing for the analysis of relationships between people and chronological analysis of publication patterns. A short guide in English, and a fuller guide in Chinese are available. Princeton has 1 concurrent user.
This online union catalog is maintained by the National Central Library in Taiwan. It includes not only rare books but also books published in traditional formats (mostly stitch-bound) until 1911 and sometimes beyond, held at key institutions in Taiwan, the PRC, and the United States. Holding information of libraries in China is incomplete with the exception of the National Library of China (formerly the National Beijing Library). At present the catalog as a whole contains hundreds of thousands of records. One can use the “General” search mode from any computer; results give only brief bibliographical details, and do not include the holdings of the National Library of China. For most extensive results, use the “Advance” search mode; this function is only available from public computers located in the East Asian Library. Search results provide full bibliographical details, and holdings from the National Library of China are included.
One may occasionally have to set the pages manually to the Traditional Chinese encoding system (via View>Encoding>).
Previously known as Guji faxian 古籍发现 and Quanwen faxian 全文发现 this database started as a discovery service for Chinese rare books and collects information about digitized Chinese rare books from libraries in China, the US and Europe. The individual entries link back to the original scans hosted by the various institutions. Clicking on “检索” without a search term allows browsing the entire database via a simplified 四库 classification adding maps, gazetteers and congshu as browsing categories. Currently the portal lists about 100,000 editions.
More recently the database integrated material from the previous Zhongguo yanjiu wangluo ziyuan daohang 中国研究网络资源导航 and provides an easy-to-navigate overview of many databases in Chinese Studies available on the Internet. Most are free; some need free individual registration.
In many cases Princeton patrons will already have full access to those resources. For resources Princeton users do not have access, the library can attempt individual document delivery. Please contact the Chinese Studies Librarian for individual requests.