East Asian Library Electronic Resources: Chinese Databases

This research guide provides access to all electronic resources in Chinese language available at Princeton in alphabetical order. For a listing of Chinese Studies resources ordered by type of resource please see the Chinese Studies Resources - by type guide.

Hanyucidian.org
Hanyucidian.org gives access to 50 Chinese language dictionaries including the extended first edition of the Hanyu dacidian 漢語大詞典 (第一版+訂補) as well as other important dictionaries like the Kangxi zidian 康熙字典, the Foxue dacidain 佛學大辭典, and the Unicode UniHan database.

The website was programmed by a German PhD student in Chinese Studies with the needs of students and researchers in mind and it is optimized for mobile usage. During the trial, the website also allows Princeton users to create a free personal user profile to access it without their Princeton netID.
Please note: If you register a personal account, you will receive a confirmation email from support@rolait.de. Please make sure to check your spam folder.
URL: https://login.ezproxy.princeton.edu/login?url=https://www.hanyucidian.org/#home
Trial period: until October 31, 2024
Please share any thoughts you have on this trial with the Chinese Studies Librarian.

China Database for Traditional Music
This database provides access to roughly 5,500 digitized media with more than 35,000 individual recordings. The recordings can be searched an browsed by artist, title, classification, language, time, and instrumentation. The database is particularly strong for various types of Chinese opera, national minorities music, and revolutionary music. The database is structured in eight sub-sections: Revolutionary Music, Chinese Opera, Chinese Folk Art, Ethnic Songs, Ethnic Instrumental Music, Dance Music, Intangible Cultural Heritage, Mongolian Music
URL: http://www.china1901.com/
Trial period: until August 15, 2024
Please note: Access to the database is password protected. Please contact jseufert@princeton.edu to receive the username and the password.

Ainosco Search
Conceptually this database is similar to Google Books and Duxiu. The database allows full-text searching for Chinese monographs (mainly from Taiwan) and also includes reading access for a subset of the searchable books as eBooks (again mainly from Taiwan). What is special, is that it allows readers to conduct full-text searches on a broad range of our print books from Taiwan and links the results to our physical holdings of those books via the Princeton catalog, even if full-text access of the eBook is not available via this database. Trial access to the database is available on campus. Off-campus access will be added as soon as it becomes available
URL: https://login.ezproxy.princeton.edu/login?url=https://www.ainoscosearch.com/
Trial period: until June 30, 2024

Taiwan Government Research Archives (TGRA)
The database collects the communiqués of the six branches of the Republic of China political system from 1946 to the present with particular emphasis on the communiqués of the administrative and judicial systems. The communiques can be browsed and filtered by a variety of options including related persons, related institutions and related laws. Entries for the laws are linked to the open Law Database of the ROC. Full-text searches are possible as and the discovered communiqués can be downloaded as PDFs. The PDFs however are not provided in OCRed form and are therefore not searchable after download. Trial access to the database is available on campus. Off-campus access will be added as soon as it becomes available
URL: https://www.ainoscotwgov.com/
Trial period: until October 31, 2023

iRead eBooks 華藝中文電子書  (e-books from Taiwan)
URL: https://www.airitibooks.com/
Reading access to about 2,000 academic e-books from Taiwan mostly published in the last 5 years. Online reading mode, printing of single pages. Online lending requires personal account and additional software. Pop-ups need to be allowed.
Trial has ended. Access to individual titles in this collection can be requested. Please contact the Chinese Studies Librarian if access is needed.

CNKI e-Book platform
This trial gives access to almost 11,000 Chinese E-Books from a number of different publishers from mainland China. All of the E-Books can be read online and can also downloaded as PDF. Despite the difficult circumstances, we ask readers to use the PDF download option with moderation. The East Asian Library will make sure to arrange long term access to the contents that is needed and is looking forward to any recommendations for perpetual access.
URL: http://book.oversea.cnki.net/CCGBWEB/Book/Navi
Trial has ended. Access to individual titles in this collection can be requested. Please contact the Chinese Studies Librarian if access is needed.

Apabi Digital Library is a collection Chinese e-Books. Records for individual books are in the main catalog, but you may also browse Princeton's collection using the link above and choose "dianji tushu". Books are viewed in a special reader application with many useful features for browsing, organizing, and marking up text. The reader may be installed from the link below (It is preinstalled on the public computers in the East Asian Library.)

Please see our user guide for detailed instructions:

Please note: The producer of this database has seized support of the database. Currently access is only available to pre-2017 issues.

Choose the tupianku 图片库 tab to use.

This collection is highly organized; the top-level categories (called “museums”) are Chinese art, calligraphy, folk art, red (i.e. socialist) art, unearthed objects, old photographs, ancient design, modern graphic design, historical costumes, rare book illustrations, classical painting manuals, typography, and pattern design. Each museum has “rooms.” The database contains over 200,000 images; the largest categories are old photographs (75,000), Chinese art (35,000), rare book illustrations (30,000), folk art (13,000) and calligraphy (12,000). Short descriptions of images, as well as the usual image functions including scrolling through an image, are provided. “High resolution” is up to 300 dpi. Images can be downloaded after individual registration. Suggestions for related images are provided.

While the China Digital Library, of which this is a part, has an English interface, very little of this particular database is available in romanization or English; thus, knowledge of Chinese is required.

One can search all divisions at once, or separately; main search criteria are by image title, artist, period, place of origin of the work, and current location. In addition, each museum can be browsed using criteria appropriate to that museum:

• Chinese art by category (portraiture, landscape, bronzes, textiles, architecture...), period, origin, current location
• Calligraphy by style (xingshu, caoshu, ...), period, origin, current location
• Folk art by category (nianhua, shadow figures, paper cuts, clothing...), subject (story people, gods...), regional style
• Red (i.e. socialist) art by category (propaganda, movie posters, book covers, oil paintings...), subject (leaders, model figures, women, children...), period (1930-), and topics (Anti-Japanese Resistance, Great Leap Forward...)
• Unearthed objects by category (ceramics and jade only), period, province
• Old photographs by region, subject (history, customs, medicine, religion...), period (19th c. -)
• Ancient design by category (eating utensils, ritual vessels, drinking utensils, weapons, furniture, musical instruments, seals...; 25 categories in total), period, material (gold, silver, bamboo, enamel...)
• Modern graphic design by category (advertisements, posters, book covers, slogans...), industry (clothing, movies and entertainment, hygiene... ), subject (markets, theater, Westernized imports, technology...)
• Historical costumes by categories (commoners, court, army, underwear, advertisements...) and period
• Rare book illustrations by category (portraiture, landscape, stories...), period, editions (collotype, woodblock...)
• Classical painting manuals by category (landscape, birds...), period, topics (Sanxi tang, Jiezi yuan...)
• Typography by classification (pictorial, geometric...), topics (life, brand logo, struggles...), period (1930-)
• Pattern design by classification (abstract, modified traditional, landscapes...), topics (entertainment, congratulatory, propaganda...)

Please note: The producer of this database has seized support of the database. Currently access is only available to pre-2017 content.

Choose the shuzi baozhi 数字报纸 tab to use.

Newspapers available include the following: Renmin ribao Haiwai ban 人民日报∶海外版  (2010-), Wenhuibao 文汇报 (2012-), Zhongguo funü bao 中国妇女报 (2009-), Zhongguo wenhuabao 中国文化报 (2008-), Zhongguo jingji shibao 中国经济时报 (2012-),, Chongqing ribao 重庆日报 (2008-), Tianjin ribao 天津日报 (2008-), Yangchen wanbao 羊城晚报 (2007-), Neimenggu chenbao 内蒙古晨报 (2008-), and Bingtuan ribao 兵团日报 (2017-)  plus 13 others.

Please note: The producer of this database has seized support of the database. Currently access is only available to pre-2017 content.

Nanfang zhoumo 南方周末 and Zhongguo Wenwu bao 中国文物报 (2007-) are no longer available on this database. The East Asian Library has a local installation of an electronic archive to Zhongguo Wenwu bao 中国文物报 that covers 1985-2018 and is available for local use on a specific computer on library premises.

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!

CADAL (China Academic Digital Associative Library) is a government-sponsored cooperative project of some 120+ academic libraries (2020), about half of which are from China, to create electronic resources for the use of their patrons. The venture is led by and housed in Zhejiang University, and most major Chinese academic institutions such as Peking, Qinghua, Fudan and Nanjing universities were participants from the beginning. CADAL originally grew out of a China-American Digital Academic Library venture, but only from the mid-2010s  a select group of overseas libraries have received access.

The major resource created by CADAL is a collection of scanned books, both in and out of copyright: 240 thousand ancient texts (including the Xuxiu siku quanshu 续修四库全书), 180 thousand republican works, 155 thousand republican periodical issues, 40 thousand newspaper issues, 800 thousand post-1949 books, 690 thousand works in Western languages, 13 thousand special collection works, 4 thousand videos, 55 thousand audiobooks and 63 thousand images. The collection is constantly increasing. The titles are not full-text searchable; but tables of contents are provided for easy navigation. Lately CADAL has added some special sections for material connected to the Manchuria Railway 满铁 13 thousand titles, modern local gazetteers 17 thousand, material on overseas Chinese 侨批 50 thousand items, and oracle bones from various institutions including from Princeton scanned with Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) technology.

(In addition to the e-books database, the navigation bar also gives access to some other resources: calligraphic works (shufa 书法), a literary timeline (Zhongguo wenxue biannian shi 中国文学编年史), Chinese medicine (zhongyiyao 中医药), and Audio (yinpinku 音频库). Note that the video choice, available only in English, brings one to the main e-books database.)

Access to the books is dependent on the copyright status of the book: while some free access is available, especially to the ancient texts, access to in-copyright books is restricted to registered users at participant libraries: one borrows parts of books, which need to be returned in order to have them become available to other users. Hence, one first has to register (zhuce 注册), and in subsequent visits to log-in (denglu 登录). For this please select 登录/注册 from the upper right of the CADAL home page. To register then click on 快速注册. Please note that it is not necessary to add a mobile phone number 手机号 in order to the register and it is also not necessary to retrieve a verification code if one does not want to connect the personal account to a Chinese mobile phone number. The registration process can be soley finished via a valid email. After registration, the system will ask for an affiliation at the first login. Please choose IP range and select “Princeton University” as your affiliation (suozai danwei 所在单位). The system will connect your account to Princeton for 180 days. For this to work you must be either using the system from a university computer (including within the library), or access the database via the library link at the top of this database description.

Activities one performs when logged-in, including borrowing books, note-taking etc., are visible to all users from search pages etc.: hence, make sure to log-out especially on shared public computers. One is not logged out automatically, even not after days. To log-out, go to one’s personal account page (registeredname’s CADAL in the English, registeredname的CADAL in the Chinese interface), and click on tuichu 推 出. This account page is available in the top navigation bar, and is also the page from where one returns  books, see one’s borrowing history, etc.  (One can choose to set the interface to English, but only a limited number of top-level screens have been translated.)

Once logged in, and directed to one’s account page, one can perform a simple search in the search box. On the resulting page, one can somewhat refine one’s search by limiting the result to title or author, and by selecting some rough facets of categories (such as ancient books or republican-period books—note that all categories are listed, even if not applicable), tags (biaoqian  标签 ) or publisher.
Under a cover image of each result, one can choose to see more details on the book, or decide to read it by clicking on the book. If choosing to read it, one is brought to a reader interface where one can display the table of contents, navigate forward and backward within a book, and change the display from one page to two pages at a time and vice versa. Printing (by right-clicking, one page at a time) does not work very well—it may be better to take screen shots.

Depending on the copyright status of the book, one will receive a request after viewing a couple of pages to check out the remainder of the chapter (jieyue 借阅). One receives a message that borrowing was successful (if the item was not borrowed by someone else), and can continue to read.

To return the chapter to the CADAL library, navigate to the borrowing page (jieyue in the top navigation bar), where one can see the status of one’s checking in-and-out. Click, if not yet selected, on the weihuan 未还button, and then return chapters by clicking on guihuan 归还 after each chapter one has checked out. And remember to log-out (also possible from this page.)

One can look at one’s notes, tags, comments, messages etc.  from the navigation bar, and there may be recommendations listed based upon one’s readings.

The CHANT (CHinese ANcient Texts) databases, compiled under the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong since 1988, give full-text access (single words, phrases and sentence patterns) to all traditional texts from the Pre-Han (pre 220AD) period up to the Six Dynasties (581 AD) (over 30 million characters.) These texts are divided into two databases: Pre-Han & Han (Xian Qin Liang Han), and Six Dynasties (Wei Jin Nanbeichao). During compilation, different versions of the same texts were carefully compared, and modern punctuation was added. Comparisons with other versions, parallel passages, as well as citations found in Leishu are shown in footnotes. CHANT also includes databases of excavated wood/bamboo and silk scripts (the Zhu-jian-bo shu database), oracular inscriptions (the Jiaguwen database, and bronze inscriptions (Jinwen). includes now a database of extant Chinese encyclopedias (Leishu), which includes the titles listed on the spreadsheet below:

To enter, click first on "dengru wenku", and then on "jigou yonghu dengru" ("For IP user only"; no password is necessary as a Princeton user). Initial navigation until entering each database itself is slow, searching the databases themselves is faster. Then choose your database, and navigate using the buttons and menus provided; each database works differently. Note that not all books are categorized properly (a Six Dynasties work might be found in the Han database, and vice versa), and that one has to search within subcategories the content of which is not always self-explanatory. One cannot usually search all works within a database at one go.

To use the databases fully, download and install the specialized fonts available from the download page after logging in.

This database contains hundreds of thousands of Chinese laws and legal commentaries, in both Chinese and English. It can be searched by keyword or browsed by category.

For complete coverage of individual newspaper titles please see our other newspaper databases including: People's Daily, Guangming Daily, PLA Daily, Factiva, Lexis Nexis, and WiseSearch.

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.

The China Economic and Social Data Platform = 中国经济社会大数据研究平台 (previous China Statistical Yearbook Database) is a large selection of statistical data published by the Chinese government. A wide variety of economic, social and environmental topics is covered. There is a data search (with a standard, an index value, and an index definition mode), a data analysis tool (enabling comparison by districts, indexes, years), and one can use yearbook navigation and the interface allows searching by indicator across yearbooks and creation of GIS maps. Because of changes to indexes over the years, and differences in coverage from index to index or district to district, the safest way of searching may be by yearbook navigation.

Since April 2023 the previous English interfaces to statistical data from China (China Statistical Yearbook Database and China Data Insights) are no longer available. 

Please note that the database does not include population statistics these are available via EPS.

More statistical data is available from other databases like EPS, CEIC, Data Planet, the so-called pishu reports database (China Economy, Public Policy, and Security Database), and the China Geo-Explorer I).

Please also note that we do have many of the statistical yearbooks in print. You can find those via the library catalog. Many print yearbooks come with CDs including the data in electronic form in Html and Excel format. We have made efforts to transfer the content of these CDs to the Princeton Data and Statistical Services (DSS) https://library.princeton.edu/dss where Princeton users can download them after login. The whole list of Chinese statistical yearbooks on the DSS server the is available at: https://dss.princeton.edu/catalog?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=china+yearbook

A database comprised of the volumes called pishu (皮书) from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), published (often yearly) by the Social Science Academic Press (SSAP). This database should be especially useful for researchers in the economic, political and social sciences of China.

The archive covers all pishu published by SSAP from 1991 onward, and new pishu are uploaded on a monthly basis, between 15-20 new volumes each month. You can see the updated title list here: http://www.eastview.com/Files/UDB-Pishu.xlsx.

You can search within all titles, or by series and/or thematic keyword (click on those headings). The seven series are China Society and Culture (国社会与文化), China Economic Development (中国的经济发展), China Regional Analysis - Provincial  (中国地区分析 - 省级), China Regional Analysis - Municipal  (中国地区分析 - 市政的), China Regional Analysis - Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan (中国地区分析 - 香港/澳门/台湾), China Industrial Sectors (中国的工业部门),  and Global Economy, Politics, Security  (世界经济，政治，安全). Thematic keywords include advertising, ethnology, etc. The database also includes such titles as the Annual Report on Research on Japan (日本研究报告). An explanatory brochure about the database is available from: http://www.eastview.com/Files/EVPishu.pdf  .

We have only a selection of these works in paper, and ranges may be spotty. Note that almost all titles are Chinese-only, although they do have English alternative titles.

Chinese Population Census Statistics are also available via the Princeton Map collection.

Via the map collection Princeton users have permanent access to the following data sets:

China County Boundaries with Census Data, 1953
China County Boundaries with Census Data, 1964
China County Boundaries with Census Data, 1982
China County Boundaries with Census Data (Part A), 1990
China County Boundaries with Census Data (Part B), 1990
China County Census Short Form Data, 2000
China County Census Long Form Data (L1-L6), 2000
China County Census Long Form Data (L7-L8), 2000
Township Census Data 2000 for each Province
China Economic Census Data by County, 2008
China census data by county, 2000-2010
China extended long form census data by province, 2010
China extended short form census data by province, 2010
China extended long form census data by county, 2010
China township population census data, 2010

All the files can be downloaded and either be used in a GIS software or opened with Excel. To open the data in Excel, please download the shapefile and open the file with the extension “.dbs” in Excel.  Under  “Metadata” in each entry additional information about the Excel fields is available.

China Monographic Series gives access to journals that are infrequently published in monographic form rather than as continuously published journals. This happens mostly in the Humanities, but to a lesser extent also in the Social Sciences. These journals are not searchable in the main China Academic Journals database and have to be retrieved from a separate interface. The link to the database is available in the lower part of the CNKI welcome page.

No usernames or passwords are necessary: the link above opens the English interface; after logging in, you can switch to a Simplified Chinese interface if you prefer. Use the PDF format for downloading articles.

Select geo-coded data is contained in the China Geo-Explorer I.

More statistical data from China is available via the CNKI China Economic and Social Data Platform, EPS and CEIC.

The latest annual statistics for China can also be found in the Sage Data (previously Data Planet) under the source "China Data Institute"

China Vitae is a foundation-supported activity whose objective is to provide current information on China 's leaders to scholars, analysts, and the general public. It consists of an English language database containing detailed biographies of thousands of Chinese leaders. Free of commercials, pop ups, and banners, the database is highly searchable, using state-of-the-art tools to find officials by name, institution, or location. A special comparison engine allows users to identify similarities in the backgrounds of officials. Another search tool tracks daily appearances of the most important officials.

On the Chinese mainland publishers have over the years preferred to publish large collections of primary and secondary print material. At the East Asian Library, we try to give access to the contents of these sets by adding searchable content note fields and scanning table of contents pages that we add to the catalog record, but for many large sets it is not possible to add all the information in a way that would allow easy searching. The Chinese Big Set Table of Contents database tries to address this problem. It provides searchable indexes for 2,500 large sets of from 130 different publishers from mainland China. The covered book sets were published 1985-present, but the database is most comprehensive for 2015-present. The table of contents (ToC) information can be searched and the ToCs can be downloaded in PDF format.

 Due to Chinese government intervention access is currently limited to Humanities subjects only.

Selected dissertations and theses from various universities in Taiwan, as well as Hong Kong University are available in this database. Starting date varies; HKU starts in 1990, others in the 2000s. The database has moved into the general Taiwanese AiritiLibrary, which includes also Taiwanese periodical literature. To actually retrieve theses, searches have to be limited to "CETD". It. includes many more dissertations than available for free on the NCL website which is available for free: National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan

Online access to transcripts of documentary films and newsreels from China, 1946(?)-1985. The bulk of the items are from the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976; all documents are in Chinese. The 1750 items were created by the Zhong yang xin wen ji lu dian ying zhi pian chang (Central Newsreel and Documentary Film Studio), a cinema company office in Henan province, China, which had nation-wide responsibilities.  This online version is directly based upon a previously published microfilm set entitled The Chinese Filmscript and Advertisement Collection, and the text images are of intermediate quality and not full-text searchable. The collection is arranged into the four series Advertisements and Film Description Series, 1953-1966; Documentary and Newsreel Scripts, 1946 (?)-1985; Feature Filmscripts, undated; and Newspaper Clipping Scrapbook, 1950-1959. For more information, see the home page of the database.  The original items are held at Duke University.

We have acquired 99 titles (122 vols.) in the CNKI reference collection and have additional subscription-based access to 15,000 vols.

Additional access to older reference works is available voa the Apabi Reference DB collection (choose "gongju tushu"). We have acquired 169 titles (371 vols.) in the Apabi reference collection.

Included in these reference works are dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies, biographical dictionaries, indexes, even compilations, etc. The two databases differ in their detailed search options, but in both cases you can check all their reference books at one go.

In the CNKI set are included such titles as 本草名著集成, 传统语言学辞典, 古代名人字号辞典, 汉语方言大词典, 简明古籍整理辞典, 钦定理藩部则例, 历代名人室名别号辞典, 新汉英中医学词典, 中国电影电视艺术家辞典, 中国官制大辞典, 中国古代建筑辞典, 中国历代科技人物录, 中国历史地名大辞典, 中国现代文学词典, 中医妇科名著集成, 中医文献学辞典. For a complete listing, see the spreadsheet below:

In the Apabi set are included such titles as 汉语大词典, 辞海, 中国大百科全书,著者别号书录考, 佛教大辞典, 京剧剧目概览, 难僻字字典, 道藏书目提要, 外国文学研究论文资料索引(1978-1985), 唐代长安词典, 宋元明清百部小说语词大辞典, 历代避讳字汇典, 中国古代科技史论文索引, 中国丛书目录及子目索引汇编, 中国宝卷总目, 中国历代思想家传记汇诠, 中国年谱辞典, 太平天国大辞典, 明人室名别称字号索引, 现代汉语大词典. For a complete listing, see the spreadsheet below:

This database includes electronic access to more than 18,000 e-Books published by the Chinese Social Science Press 中国社会科学出版社. Searches for books, book chapters, articles and illustrations are all possible. The books can be accessed via two different reading modes: A web reading mode that will show the content as a webpage and an original layout reading mode that is similar to an online PDF reader. Copying of text is possible from both reading modes.

A trial of the whole database is currently active until further notice

Princeton users can use special features of the Chinese Text Project website. The library provides access to the Chinese Text Project Application Programming Interface (CTP API) which facilitates usage of large amounts of textual data and metadata for text mining purposes and other digital humanities (DH) studies. The API works with external tools such as the C-Text Text Tools and the free DH tool MARKUS.

Because of the large amounts of traffic that is involved in using the API, direct usage of the API is currently limited to on-campus use as the library proxy server does not support API usage. For off-campus use of the API please connect to the University network via Sonic Wall VPN before accessing. An extensive description of the API is available at: https://ctext.org/tools/api

Searchable index to the printed collection, which includes reduced copies of articles on China in less common Japanese academic journals. This collection may be viewed from the main computer cluster in the EAL.

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)

A text-searchable database of ca. 7,000 Chinese periodicals published from late Qing to 1949 in all fields of knowledge:  the humanities, social sciences, exact sciences, as well as popular journals. Examples include the Shidianzhai huabao, Xiandai, Shaonian Zhongguo, Dazhong shenghuo, Guocui xuebao, Qingnian Zhongguo, Minfeng. Listings per subject area are provided. Contents are regularly updated. One can search bykeyword in title in simplified or traditional Chinese, which retrieves article titles; clicking on such a hit retrieves the page with the term, which however is not highlighted.  One can browse by category of publication (use the pop-up menu called +fenlei tixi). Clicking on a periodical title gives the issues available of that title; clicking on the issue gives a table of content. PDFs can be downloaded. Advanced searching (by article or periodical title) is available. This database complements the Quanguo baokan suoyin database.

Please note:  With the increased access to the Quanguo baokan suoyin access to the Dacheng database will cease December 31, 2023.

Database of the important newspaper (1902-1949) Da gong bao (or Ta Kung Pao, L'impartial).  All editions of this newspaper (Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Hankou, Hong Kong) are included. The current Ta Kung Pao was established by the government of the People's Republic of China after the Chinese Civil War. Widely regarded as a veteran pro-communist newspaper, it covered a range of political, economic and cultural topics.Full-text search; results are available in snippets or full page pdf.

This database of Classical Chinese Texts gives access to various sub-databases including the Zhengtong daozang 正统道藏, the Daozang jiyao 道藏輯要, a collection of Dunhuang Manuscripts from English, Russian and Peking collections 敦煌史料-英法俄、北大等馆藏, the Imperial encyclopedia (Yongle dadian 永乐大典), the Imperial Library (Gujin tushu jicheng 古今图书集成), Collected historical material on the Qing Dynasty 清代史料 (in particular 五朝会典, 清实录, 缙绅全书系列), a collection of old Japanese books 日本古典书籍, two Congshu collections (Sibu congkan 四部丛刊 and Sibu beiyao 四部备要 (here called 续四部丛刊)) as well as the Siku quanshu 四库全书, the Xuxiu siku quanshu 续修四库全书 and includes the Siku catalog 四库存目书, Banned books from the Siku 四库禁毁书, and Supplemental texts to the Siku  四库未收书.

A collaborative digitization project, sponsored by Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange Program, which includes Chinese rare books digitized from the collections of four participating libraries: the Asian Division of the Library of Congress, tEast Asian Library and the Gest Collection of Princeton University, the Harvard-Yenching Library of Harvard University, and the Fu Ssu-Nien Library of the Institute of History and Philology of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan.

Each library provided some 100,000 images, covering between 171 and 295 titles each.  They have now been made available free of charge to the world. A description of the project is available.

Due to maintenance work the database will be unavailable between September 5 and September 11, 2020.

The newly developed Digital Library of Qing Archives of the National Palace Museum (NPM) in Taibei integrates the former Grand Council Archives Database = 清代宮中檔奏摺及軍機處檔摺件, the Qing Historical Figures Database = 大清國史人物列傳及史館檔傳包傳稿資料庫, and the Index to Qing Archival Volumes Database = 清代文獻檔冊目錄資料庫 as well as other holdings of Qing archives at the NPM. The new database is free and does no longer require usernames and passwords. For their own convenience users can create a free account to use further options like tracking their search history. High-resolution images of the documents are available in three different formats (JPEG, PDF, IIIF) for browsing and in the case of PDF for downloading.

The database may be searched by responsible official, title, matter and document number. The Qing Palace Memorials are the zouzhe memorials directly sent from a local official to the emperor, which were kept, after the emperor made his decisions, at court; a copy was made for the Grand Council Archives. Dates of the decisions, plus original accompanying material, was kept with the copy for the latter office, not with the former originals. The database also functions as a Qing biographical database, based upon 10-plus biographical compilations, for those individuals having submitted memorials.

Part of the database are material used by the Guoshiguan to prepare biographies planned to be included in the Qingshi to be compiled later, held at the NPM. They include the so-called biographical packages (zhuanbao), biographical drafts (zhuangao), and the biographies presented to the court, the Jinchengben Da Qing guo shi ren wu lie zhuan. The biographical packages contain a wide variety of notes, texts, obituaries, memorials, chronologies, memorials, nianpu, even collected writings and other material; 3,536 such packages are included. The 8,384 drafts included are in various stages of compilation, of which only the very the last stage are those made for the Qingshigao. The 2,726 volumes of biographies presented at court to the emperor are official bound biographies of officials of specific ranks. A few are in Manchu.

Alternative Access:

With this system the NPM offers an alternative system for searching through its Qing archives holdings, rare books, and historical maps.

Searching using the full text filter, you can read (and print) most articles. Sometimes there is a limit of what you can access at one time, but you can follow up with searches for the words at the end of those pages, etc.

Searching using the book title filter, you can read a limited number of pages directly on-line, but in many cases you can then email to yourself 50 pages or 1/5th of the book (whichever is less) at a time.

Some of the books can be purchased by the library for perpetual access; if you think we should purchase a recent book as an e-book please notify the Chinese Bibliographer (displayed in the rightmost column of this page). These will be available from the general catalog.

Note that more statistical data from China is available via the CNKI China Economic and Social Data Platform, and CEIC. Select geo-coded data is contained in the China Geo-Explorer I. The latest annual statistics for China can also be found in the Sage Data (previously Data Planet) under the source "China Data Institute"

NOTE: To enter the database click "Enter the Database" in the upper right corner on EPS's website.

NOTE: To enter the database click "EPS数据平台" in the in the middle of EPS's website.

Please also note that some browsers do not support offsite access to both language versions of this database.
Chrome, Edge, and Opera all seem to work fine.

Full-text database of many major national and regional newspapers, including selected full-text and abstracts of many industry and general interest publications, as well as web pages. Includes many publications from East Asia and Asia in general, both in English as in original languages. Specify searching material in Japanese, simplified and traditional Chinese scripts by choosing the appropriate language in "Publications-by language", add by clicking on the triangle that code to your search, and then search directly in characters. make sure to first set the "Language setting" at the bottom of the page to "All languages" by clicking the X after English, if English is set as the default.

Includes among others: China Daily (1993- ), People's Daily Online (Chinese, English, Japanese) (2010- ), South China Morning Post (1984- ), Xinhua News Agency (Chinese, English) (1989- ).

This database contains full text images of hundreds of thousands of government documents from the Ming and Qing dynasties. The database may be searched by responsible official, title, matter and document number.  It is produced by the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. To login please click “licensed usage” 授權使用 on the entry website of the database. The contents of the previous Ming-Qing dang’an set in print is fully incorporated in this database. For some supporting material, including glossaries and Qing document samples arranged by kind, see https://newarchive.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/.

Browsable and searchable version of the influential Chinese newspaper targeting intellectuals, founded in 1949 and run by the CPC Central Committee. Coverage: 1949-2018.

The Han, Wei, Liu Chao Stone Inscriptions Database includes 2488 rubbings made from 2466 stone inscriptions. It is based on the 2008 published 《漢魏六朝碑刻校注》by the late historian Mao Yuanming. Additional material from archeological reports ranging up to 2015 has been added. Where available high quality images of the rubbings have been added to the database and can be viewed side by side with the text. The database is full-text searchable, but operates copy protection. Copying of text is only possible via a pop-up that will show when a section of text is marked.

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 also note: The copy protection of this database has issues with some browsers! At the moment Chrome and Edge work fine, while Firefox sometimes does not display the rightly encoded content!

Also known as Global Times. Daily Chinese tabloid under the auspices of the People's Daily newspaper, focusing on international issues. Use IE; other browsers have issues. Click on "Please click here to enter."

For searches with names, please add "%" before or after the character, for example "王%" to search for authors with "王" as surname and "%永" for authors with "永" in the name.

Pages in original layout are only available from 2001.  Please be patient: files take a long time to download without any indication that downloading is in progress.

Full-text version of the Jie fang jun bao (PLA Daily) from 1956 to current. No images are available.

The database is constructed by Zhonghua Shuju and compiled by Professor Gong Yanming from Zhejiang University. It is the first section of the larger Biographical Examination Database 历代科举任务数据库. It aims to record information on all Jinshi degree holders throughout Chinese history and to provide information about their regional and ancestral origin. Currently the database includes information on 102,000 Jinshi degree holders. It provides different search possibilities such as search by regional origin, dynasty, year of degree, last name, etc. Accurate and fuzzy searches are possible. Each entry aims to list historical sources for the recorded information. A number of options for statistical analysis are also provided (for details please see the database help page).

To access the database, you have to click on 登录 and choose IP登录 in case you are not automatically recognized as a Princeton user.

For simple reading and searching, no individual registration is needed, but if you wish to copy text, make notes, submit corrections, save searches, etc. 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).

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.

Even though this free database by the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is mainly focused on the Sino-Japanese War and Sino-Japanese relations, it gives access to a wide range of resources from the Republican Period. These include archives, books, newspapers, journals, communist publications, audio recordings, photographs and even musical scores. Reading access is free.

Kao gu is a monthly, peer-reviewed journal of Chinese archaeology. Many of the articles have English abstracts. We hold an electronic archive of this journal from 1997-2003, including diagrams and photographs. It may be viewed from the main computer cluster in the EAL.

This database collects 292 local Republican newspapers covering the period of 1911-1949. The newspapers are full-text searchable. Different from most other databases the OCRed text is visible in this database and can be copied. Included are:

東南日報 (Shanghai), 華北新報  (Beijing), 華光日報 (Nanchang), 立報 (Shanghai), 南京晚報 (Nanjing), 羣力報 (Jiaodong (Shandong)), 時事新報 (Shanghai), 實報 (Beijing), 蘇州明報 (Suzhou), 鐵報 (Shanghai), 武漢日報 (Hankou), 西南日報 (Chongqing), 新華日報 (Hankou), 新申報 (Shanghai), 中山日報 (Guangzhou), 中央日報 (Shanghai).

As a member of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), Princeton University Library supports the development of this database.

This is a database of Buddhist related documents from non-Buddhist sources published by Zhonghua shuju. It collects a wide variety of documents like edicts, monastery records, stele inscriptions, rock carvings from Buddhist sites, philosophical texts, poems, and  images. These documents have been drawn together from a range of sources including 四庫全書,  續修四庫全書, 四庫存目叢書, various inscription collections,  全宋文，全遼文，北京圖書館藏中國歷代石刻拓本滙編, 明清实录, local gazetteers, and many other sources. The collection was assembled and punctuated by Prof Li Shen 李申 from Shanghai Normal University. The collection is divided into 金石佛踨, 史部佛跡, 子部佛影, and 集部佛論. Each section can be browsed individually or also searched through simultaneously.

To access the database you have to click on 登录 and choose IP登录 in case you are not automatically recognized as a Princeton user.

For simple reading and searching, no individual registration is needed, but if you wish to copy text, make notes, submit corrections, save searches, etc. 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).

The Lidai shiwenji zongku 歷代詩文集總庫 (previously known as Lidai bieji ku 歷代別集庫) consists of the collected poetry writings of individuals. Currently Princeton users have access to 8,000 titles of the full range of pre-Ming, Ming, and Qing authors. As all Airusheng/Erudition databases, the texts have been carefully digitized and checked for optimal full-text searching. Please select “ancient classics” from the first landing page, then choose 歷代詩文集總庫 you will see «Ming qian», «Ming», «Qing shang», and «Qing xia» highlighted.

Searchable database of current non-academic Chinese periodicals in literature, general culture, news and politics, popular science, economics and law, education, health and lifestyle, history and finance management. The database gives access to more than 3,000 titles, including Caixin-China Economics & Finance, VOGUE, Caijing, Sanlian Zhoukan, Zhongguo Zhoukan, Liaowang Dongfang Zhoukan, Wenwu Tiandi, ZhizuGQ.

The Mingbao Yuekan (Ming Pao Monthly) is a Hong Kong-based periodical covering Chinese culture, society, and current events. We hold an electronic archive of the magazine from 1966-2000. It may be viewed from the main computer cluster in the EAL.

This database is based on the Republican era collection of CADAL (China Academic Digital Associative Library). For this database the books, journals and newspapers from CADAL have been processed with OCR (optical character recognition) which allows full-text searching. Most of the search results from books and journals can be directly opened from 民国文献大全. Results from some journals and most of the newspapers however are currently not open to Princeton.

This is a Chinese Character dictionary that offers several different lookup methods (pinyin, radical, stroke count) and also contains some introductory tutorials on the history and structure of Chinese characters.It may be viewed from the main computer cluster in the EAL.

Previously hosted at the National Social Sciences Database (PRC) = 国家哲学社会科学学术期刊数据库 this collection gives access to hundreds of high-level Chinese social science and humanities journals, including those published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. These journals are now freely available. Titles include 城市问题 (Urban Problems), 财经研究 (The Study of Finance and Economics), 当代韩国 (Contemporary Korea), 东南亚研究 (Southeast Asian Studies), 敦煌学辑刊 (Journal of Dunhuang Studies), 当代亚太 (Contemporary Asia-Pacific Studies), 敦煌研究 (Dunhuang Research), 复旦学报：社会科学版  (Fudan Journal, Social Sciences Edition), 方言 ( Dialect), 金融研究 (Journal of Financial Research), 考古 (Archaeology), 历史研究 (Historical Research), 满语研究 (Manchu Studies), 明清小说研究 (The Research on Ming and Qing Dynasties Novels), 美国研究 (American Studies Quarterly), 民族语文 (Minority Languages of China), 南开管理评论 (Nankai Business Review), 清史研究 (Studies in Qing History), 求实 (Truth Seeking), 日本问题研究 (Japan Problem Studies), 人口研究 (Population Research), 世界宗教研究 (Studies in World Religions), 探索 (Probe), 文史哲 (Journal of Literature,History and Philosophy), 文物 (Cultural Relics), 中国经济史研究 (Researches in Chinese Economic History), 中国语文 (Chinese) and 政治学研究 (CASS Journal of Political Science).

Individual titles have also been registered in the catalog; thus, when searching for Kao gu in the catalog, and clicking on "View Princeton's online holdings," there is an additional link to the holdings in this database.

Additionally, the database gives access to 20,000 fascicles of Chinese rare books from the collections of the library of the Chinese Academy for Social Sciences.

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 websites collects links to a range of free databases offered by the National Palace Museum, including databases with collection information for bronzes, paintings, rare books, decorative motifs, genealogical documents, rare books, Qing dynasty documents.

This database gives free access to high-resolution images and related description articles of art pieces (painting, documents, calligraphy, ceramics, jades, curios, rare books and bronzes) in the (Taiwan) NPM collections. Descriptions can be viewed in Traditional  Chinese and English. One can search by category, dynasty, gallery and multimedia (video or 3D Digital).

The National People's Congress (NPC) database of the People's Republic of China is a comprehensive collection of archives and documents of the National People’s Congress, from the 1st Session of 1st NPC to present.

The collection includes: Deputy Lists, Agendas, Conference Updates, Documents and Reports, Resolutions and Statements, Leaders’ Activities, Selected Proposals, Suggestions of the Deputies, News Reports, Pictures, Press Conferences, Important Commentaries, Video Reports, etc. With complete, full-spectrum contents, it’s an authoritative database of NPC agendas, topics, resolutions and related reports.

Coverage is from the 1st NPC onward; it includes text, photos and videos, and is updated regularly.

The database works best with the Chrome browser.

This database indexes more than 2 million articles in Chinese (and other languages) published in more than 4,000 Taiwanese periodicals and in several hundred Hong Kong and Macau journals from 1853 to current; it is updated each quarter. It was previously called the Zhonghua minguo qikan lunwen suoyin and Periopath/Taiwan qikan lunwen suoyin. The index is maintained at the National Central Library in Taibei. Some items without copyright are freely available. You can request those which are not through InterLibrary Loan in the usual way. Each citation has a link which allows you to see whether it is listed in an electronic database (電子期刊聯合目錄 ); if the result says CEPS, it is available in the Taiwanese Electronic Periodical System, TEPS.

The PRC History Group is a network of scholars with interests in the history of the People’s Republic of China. Their free website gives access to current book reviews, a number of journals focusing on the cultural revolution, like Remembrance 记忆, Yesterday 昨天, and Past Events 往事. It also links to a wide range of resources on PRC History that are freely available.

The East Asian Library at Princeton has built the largest known collection of Chinese Archival Handbooks. These handbooks give detailed descriptions on archival collections within Chinese archives. For ease of use the library is scanning and making accessible table of contents and archival fond list of these handbooks for online browsing.

The index databases for the Late Qing and Republican databases are larger than the full-image databases. This database is to be complimented by the Dacheng laojiukan database. The index databases pian ming shu ju ku 篇名数据库 include more than 30 million citations.

To request articles not available in full-image please write to the Chinese Studies Librarian.

Fully searchable database of Song poetry as published by the Beijing Daxue chubanshe in 72 vols., including the poetry by some 9,000 individuals. Small biographies are included. Searching is possible by order of published text, by full text, but also by rhymes and tones, rhyme and tone schemes, keyword position and genre. The “self-defined poem” search automatically analyzes the rhyme and genre of any given verse, and also allows you to search poems that contain similar content or use similar form. Statistical analysis is also possible. Princeton has only 1 concurrent user.

Fully searchable database of Tang poetry made at Peking University, including the poetry by some 3,700 individuals. Small biographies are included. Searching is possible by order of published text, by full text, but also by rhymes and tones, rhyme and tone schemes, keyword position and genre. The “self-defined poem” search automatically analyzes the rhyme and genre of any given verse, and also allows you to search poems that contain similar content or use similar form. Statistical analysis is also possible. Princeton has only 1 concurrent user.

This is a compilation of articles in women's studies published between 1995 and 2001. It may be viewed from the main computer cluster in the EAL.

The database contains the full text-online; in addition it has the original pages in PDF format.

The Shen Bao (also spelled Shunpao) database is full-text searchable and contains PDF page images of this newspaper published from 1872 to 1949. This database, containing more than 2 million articles, works best on Internet Explorer.

In 1906 this Japanese-owned Chinese newspaper was established in Fengtian (today's Shenyang) by the Japanese journalist Nakajima Masao. It was the highest circulation Chinese language daily newspaper and the most important instrument of Japanese press influence in Manchuria and so is a major news resource on events in North-East China. The database is part of Shanghai Library’s Quanguo baokan suoyin 全国报刊索引. Please note that it is not full-text searchable, it can only be searched on the article title level, but it also indexes advertisements and images.

Established in Shanghai in 1907 this newspaper is among the first larger revolutionary newspaper published in China and was shortly among the most widely sold newspapers in Shanghai. After the foundation of the Chinese Republic the newspaper lost some of its republican fervor. The newspaper changed hands several times and was later acquired by Yuan Shikai. Its publication was interrupted between 1926 and 1937 and again between 1941 and 1945 and finally seized publication in 1946. The database is part of Shanghai Library’s Quanguo baokan suoyin 全国报刊索引. Please note that it is not full-text searchable, it can only be searched on the article title level, but it also indexes advertisements and images.

This electronic database is available on all public computers at the East Asian Library. Fully searchable collection of 504 original and historical works (3134 volumes) published by the Commercial Press in 1919-1936. Original collection used photolithography, which resulted in better editions than the then available typeset editions. Authoritative editions. Alternatively, Sibu congkan is also available via the Diaolong database collection.

This electronic database, published by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Digital Heritage Publishing Ltd., contains on at least 183 CD-ROMs the complete contents, in full text and image, of the 3460+ titles of the Wenyuange edition of the Si ku quan shu (1782) plus a few other useful tools. The total content is a staggering 800 million characters, and is arranged under almost 2 million piece titles. Some of the titles contained in the Si ku quan shu are themselves large compilations, such as the Quan Tang shi, Zi zhi tong jian, Xu Zi zhi tong jian chang bian, Wen xuan, Pei wen yun fu, Tai ping yu lan, the 25 Histories. One should realize, however, that the Siku quanshu editions are not always the best ones available, nor are they always complete: as is well known, its compilation involved censorship. The Electronic Si ku quan shu ("e-SKQS") is useful not only for searching, but also for studying: it has linked dictionaries, and the possibility of saving notebooks. Princeton University's license is valid for 3 simultaneous users, and the electronic Siku Quanshu is available from all public computers located in the East Asian Library. The functionality of the database is well thought-out, but its interface is not very intuitive: in addition to consulting a guide, users are advised to ask for explanatory session with the Chinese Bibliographer. Alternatively, Siku quanshu is also available via the Diaolong database collection.

This database gives access to past and (if applicable) current issues to the following Sinological periodicals published in Taiwan (mostly from the Academia Sinica):

中央研究院歷史語言研究所集刊, 中央研究院中國文哲研究集刊, 中央研究院近代史研究所集刊, 中央研究院近代中國婦女史研究, 中央研究院口述歷史期刊, 中央研究院近代中國史研究通訊, 中央研究院臺灣人類學刊, 中央研究院臺灣史研究, 漢學研究, 思与言, 鵝湖學誌, 鵝湖月刊, 食貨月刊, 民俗曲藝

The home page is in English; you may want to change to Traditional Chinese for better results.

This database was previously offered as a stand-alone database and is now hosted as part of the Taiwan Academic Classics database. Please note that there may be other database titles listed in left column of the interface to which Princeton currently does not subscribe.

The Song Tomb Inscriptions Database is the first section of Zhonghua Shuju’s Chinese Stone Inscriptions Database 《中華石刻數據庫》. It includes 8,800 items in its first part 初编, 1,940 items in its second part 续编, and 1999 items in the third part 三编. The database has been constructed under the direction of the Song Historian Li Weiguo. The texts have been collated from various sources like the 《全宋文》, archeological reports and from private collections of rubbings. The sources of each epitaph are given on the respective page. Where available high quality images of the rubbings have been added to the database and can be viewed side by side with the text. The database is full-text searchable, but operates copy protection. Copying of text is only possible via a pop-up that will show when a section of text is marked.

Please note: While searching will bring up results from all the different parts (初编, 续编, 三编) if you want to browse the included items of each part you have to switch manually to the other part of the database. You can do this by selecting the 中华石刻数据库 logo on the top left and then select the respective part from the menu of the individual sub-databases.

To make use of all the database features 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 also note: The copy protection of this database has issues with some browsers! At the moment Chrome and Edge work fine, while Firefox sometimes does not display the rightly encoded content!

The Tabloids (1897-1949) is a sub-section of the Quan guo bao kan suo yin 全國報刊索引 (National Index to Chinese Newspapers & Periodicals). This section gives access to more than 400 individual titles of tabloids form the collections of Shanghai Library. The database includes among other titles like Youxi bao 《遊戲報》, Shijie fanhua bao 《世界繁華報》, Jingbao 《晶報》, Fuermosi (Holmes)《福爾摩斯》Luobinhan (Robin Hood)《羅賓漢》, Libao《立報》and Shehui ribao《社會日報》. These popular newspapers are a great resource for research into popular culture and modern city life in late Qing and Republican China. Much more than broadsheet newspapers the tabloids are focusing on leisure, entertainment, literature, film, theater and dance and also offer the latest gossip.  Please note that the database is not full-text searchable, it can only be searched on the article title level, but it also indexes advertisements and images.

The TEPS (Taiwan Electronic Periodicals Service) database now included in the Airiti Digital Library offers an archive of several hundred Taiwanese periodicals in various subjects, including natural and applied sciences, medicine, the humanities, and social sciences. Full texts can be downloaded in PDF format. One can browse by title. The TEPS collection is part of the Chinese Electronic Periodical Service (CEPS) database. The majority of the journals included in the database are covered in electronic form from 2000 on-wards, but there are many journals with digital back issues going back to the mid-20th century. The database even includes some 1930s journals.

Available on the traditional Chinese computer in the Catalog Room are the Chinese-language editorials from 1932-1935 of this Japanese-language newspaper. Some Japanese-language appendices (評壇) and (月曜評壇), and the serial 中國經濟與帝國主義的攻勢 are also available.

The Tang Tomb Inscriptions Database is a sub-section of Zhonghua Shuju’s Chinese Stone Inscriptions Database 《中華石刻數據庫》. It currently includes about 10,000 items, but will eventually include 12,500 items. It has been constructed under the direction of the art historian Peng Xinglin who has privately collected more than 8,000 rubbings and has opened a private gallery the 千唐志金石馆 for his collection in Weifang in 2017. The texts have been collated from Peng Xinglin's private collection and various other sources, like published works and archeological reports. Where available high quality images of the rubbings have been added to the database and can be viewed side by side with the text. The database is full-text searchable, but operates copy protection. Copying of text is only possible via a pop-up that will show when a section of text is marked.

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: The copy protection of this database has issues with some browsers! At the moment Chrome and Edge work fine, while Firefox sometimes does not display the rightly encoded content!

The Thesaurus Linguae Sericae (TLS) is an Historical and Comparative Encyclopaedia of Chinese Conceptual Schemes and is designed as a collaborative forum for discussion on the close reading of Chinese texts for a cross-cultural study of conceptual history. It provides a corpus of classical Chinese texts wherever possible with interlinear translations. TLS links the texts incorporated with an analytic dictionary of the Chinese language.

The Thesaurus was founded by Christoph Harbsmeier (University of Oslo) and is developed by Center for Informatics in East-Asian Studies (Kyoto University). It is hosted by Princeton University, Department of East Asian Studies, in cooperation with Ruhr University Bochum, Forschungszentrum für traditionelle chinesische Kulturen.

This is a full text searchable database of documents covering the Tokyo Trials of World War II Japanese war criminals, collected from sources around the world. The database includes transcripts of the proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, court exhibits of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, transcripts of the interrogations by the prosecutors, historical photos, and relevant audio-visual resources.

The resources have been classified and indexed with parallel translations in English, Chinese and Japanese.

The database includes photographs or copies of original texts from the National Archives of the United States and related material acquired from sources around the world and was compiled by the Center for Tokyo Trial Studies at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

The complete collection will be published in stages. The first stage includes the English-language Collection of Court Exhibits of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.  There is cross-referencing among the images, texts, audio and video material. In the future, all documents will be available in English, Chinese and Japanese. At this moment, some parts are already available in English, but related books and documents are still largely in Chinese only.

To use the database please click on the button “Log In” button in the top menu and choose “Institutional User Login” without filling in anything, to proceed.

Please note: The database has recently been updated. The update version currently does only offer a Chinese interface and is not supported by the library proxy server. For off-campus access please use Sonic Wall VPN (link is shown below).

Collection of searchable Taiwanese full-text newspapers from the United Daily News group, including the Lianhebao 聯合報 from 1951.

Please note that an additional log in step might be necessary for the database to recognize you as a Princeton user. For this please use the links 登錄 and 定址會員登入.

Wanfang’s Policies and Laws of China database. Searches some 500,000 entries. Special facets include currently valid versus discontinued distinctions, and refinement search boxes include issuing agency. Compare with LawInfoChina/ChinaLawInfo. As with all Wanfang databases, once on the Wanfang home page, you can move from database to database via tabs. The “xue shu lun wen” tab combines several databases into one mega-search, and you can also combine searches across databases using the advanced search option.

Wanfang’s New Local Gazetteers database. This database searches full-text versions of new (i.e., post-1949) local gazetteers, which are also browsable by region or topic. Pages are readable and downloadable in pdf form in some 6 million small parts by navigating through the Table of Contents (mulu), by clicking on “chakan yuanwen” (read original excerpt) or “xiazai yuanwen” (download original excerpt). You can also read through the complete gazetteers on line, by clicking on “zhengben yuedu”  (reading full volume). More advanced searching (Boolean searching, fuzzy searching) is available, and you can narrow down results by using facets or adding refinements to your search (and clicking “search within results.”) As with all Wanfang databases, once on the Wanfang home page, you can move from database to database via tabs.  The tab for the New Local Gazetteers, is somewhat hidden though; it is listed only on the very upper menu, under the “More…” (geng duo) category.

Wanfang’s Academic conference papers database. Searches more than 2 million conference papers. Also browsable by topic and then year. Although an extra function “full text only” is available, differences between “all” and “full-text only” seem to be minimal. As with all Wanfang databases, once on the Wanfang home page, you can move from database to database via tabs. The “xue shu lun wen” tab combines several databases into one mega-search, and you can also combine searches across databases using the advanced search option.

Wanfang’s Online academic journals or Periodicals database . More than 22 million full-text searchable articles, which are also browsable by topic or journal. Covered years are fewer than the China Academic journals database (most journals do not go back further than 2001), and page numbers are only visible when viewing the article itself, not in the index. Hence, searching CNKI’s China Academic Journals should be your first choice for finding articles; yet, with exclusive online contracts on the rise in China, some journals may be only available in one database and not the other. Again, you can narrow down your results not only by using the topical and chronological facets, but also by typing within the tab-looking grey boxes on top of your results: e.g., by typing 2003 to 2008 in the starting and concluding year boxes. As with all Wanfang databases, once on the Wanfang home page, you can move from database to database via tabs. The “xue shu lun wen” tab combines several databases into one mega-search, and you can also combine searches across databases using the advanced search option.

Wanfang’s Dissertations and theses database. This database includes more than 2 million dissertations and theses, and hence is much larger than the history and literature (doctoral) dissertations and (master) theses parts of the CNKI equivalent previously available. Note that you can narrow down your results not only by using the topical and chronological facets, but also by typing within the tab-looking grey boxes on top of your results: e.g., by typing 北京大学 in the 学校 box. As with all Wanfang databases, once on the Wanfang home page, you can move from database to database via tabs. The “xue shu lun wen” tab combines several databases into one mega-search, and you can also combine searches across databases using the advanced search option.

Wenshi ziliao are collections on local history that are being published on all administrative levels in form of open-ended series. The collecting and editing of Wenshi ziliao was first suggested in April 1959 by Zhou Enlai to document the experience of modernization 60 years after the reform movement of 1898. Local 文史研究馆所 were set up and supported by the Political Consultative Conference. During the past 60+ years they have often changed from internal to open publications and back. Estimations of the amount of Wenshi ziliao issues are hovering between 80,000 to 100,000 volumes. Here table of contents indexes are available for searching on each administrative level (with some exceptions like Xinjiang), and the underlying PDFs can also be downloaded for local use. Altogether there are about 1,250 documents with about 45,800 pages of article information for about 500,000 articles.

So far online access is only available to a small subset of Wenshi ziliao. Lately the 抗日战争与近代中日关系文献数据平台of the CASS 近代史研究所 made some 16,000 volumes of Wenshi ziliao freely accessible.

Along with Shen Bao, this early Shanghai newspaper was one of the most widely circulating Chinese newspapers in Shanghai during the Republican period. The newspaper was established by Chinese businessmen in Shanghai, with the British businessman A.W. Danforth as general director, and Cai Erkang as Editor-in-chief. In 1899 John Calvin Ferguson gained ownership and appointed Wang Hanxi as general director. The newspaper includes the famous literary supplement Kuai Huo lin 快活林 (published from 1914, from 1932 published as Xin yuan lin 新园林). The supplements are part of the database. Please note that it is not full-text searchable, it can only be searched on the article title level, but it also indexes advertisements and images.

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 Xu xiu Si ku quan shu database is a set of 5328 full-text searchable Classical Chinese titles. This database forms an important addition to the Si ku quan shu and Zhongguo ji ben gu ji ku databases already available, and this late-20th century compilation is based upon an assessment of items which became important subsequent to the 18th-century Si ku quan shu compilation, arranged in the same way. Originally published in 1800 thick paper volumes, it is strongest in Qing material, but does occasionally include better versions of items already included in the Si ku quan shu. The original items came from the collections of more than 80 Chinese libraries. The database searches very quickly, you can compare OCRd text with original text, and print or download using a somewhat idiosyncratic decorative, but self-explanatory interface.

The newspaper was founded by the Belgian priest Frédéric-Vincent Lebbe in Tianjin on October 1st, 1915.  On September 15, 1937, it was forced to suspend publication until December 8, 1938, when it resumed in Kunming. On March 24, 1940, it relocated to Chongqing, and after the Second Sino-Japanese War, it resumed publishing in Tianjin on December 1st, 1945, until its closure in January 1949. The database is part of Shanghai Library’s Quanguo baokan suoyin 全国报刊索引. Please note that it is not full-text searchable, it can only be searched on the article title level, but it also indexes advertisements and images.

The documents in this database were brought together by the Center of Local Archives at Shanghai Jiaotong University. The archives (mostly in manuscript form) originate mainly from private collections in the provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui, Fujian, and Jiangxi. Major parts of the collections come from Shicang 石仓 (Zhejiang) and from Huizhou 徽州. Included are contracts, private and company ledgers, examination documents, medical prescriptions, local theater and opera material, court records, letters, family records, and various other types of material. The majority of the documents date from the Qing and Republican period, but there are also some Ming and PRC documents included. Currently, this database is the only one of its type in China.
The texts have been arranged according to regions, with archives from families in the same region put together, by village.  Various (full-text and multidimensional) searches and functions are available through searches in simplified and traditional characters.

ACCESS NOTE: Please confirm IP authentication when opening the database.

This is a compilation of Chinese laws and regulations from 1949-1997. It may be viewed from the main computer cluster in the EAL.

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.

This is a database of 10,000 traditional titles (+4,500 additional editions of the same titles) on a wide variety of subjects, and from many different periods of time. It is full text searchable, while, less conveniently but sometimes usefully, images of the texts can be flipped through as well. Many ways of searching and the setting of limits are provided. It has become the database of choice in the PRC; but note that there certainly are mistakes in the way characters have been converted: it may be necessary to read the image-based texts. A complete list of contents is available below.

A Chinese database for epigraphical material. Click on the blue button 进入产品主页 to open the database.

This database, when finished, will include more than 10,000 pieces of various kinds of literature, such as bianwen, baojuan, shanshu, huaben, zhanghui xiaoshuo, zaju, chuanqi, zhugongdiao, guci etc., all in full-text format next to the original page (which may be, e.g., manuscript scraps from Dunhuang). You can search the various genres separately.

Zhongguo wenwu bao is a newspaper for archaeology and cultural relics. Previously existing online access is no longer available. The East Asian Library holds an electronic archive of this newspaper from 1985-2018, which may be viewed from the main computer cluster in the East Asian Library. Please see this guide on how to use the electronic version at the East Asian Library.

Operated by the China Academic Digital Associative Library (CADAL) this database includes Dunhuang manuscripts (images included are mostly from China and the UK, but are supposed to increase over the next years) as well as collections of other local manuscripts (currently mostly contracts). The database is freely available. Please note that the image viewer of the database works best with the Edge and Chrome browsers, but seems to have problems with Firefox.

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.

The Zhonghua Classics Database contains the standard punctuated versions of many important Chinese classical texts in the fields of philosophy, history and literature (such as biji) as published by Zhonghua Shuju and other major publishers of punctuated editions. The database also includes the 360 volume Quan Song Wen《全宋文》set as e-books. Quan Song Wen is a collection of Chinese prose dating from the Song dynasty that was first published in 2006 by 上海辭書出版社.

In addition to browsing whole titles, this digitized version has been optimized to search simultaneously variant forms of characters (defaults can be changed in the advanced search), and includes especially useful ways to search variants of biographical data, place names, etc. Dictionaries, chronology converters are included. These functions also pop up whenever you select a character in the main text.

To access the database, you have to click on 登录 and choose IP登录 in case you are not automatically recognized as a Princeton user.

For simple reading and searching, no individual registration is needed, but if you wish to copy text, make notes, submit corrections, save searches, etc. 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).

Advanced searches can be made using the “specialized search” function.

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.

The original printed text is available for comparison; please click on the orange page numbers that are displayed in the running text.

One oddity is the lack of an obvious home/(re)starting page: click on the database title for that function.

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>).

A database with pdf's of single pages of the 1928-1949 issues of the Zhongyang Ribao (Central Daily News), Taiwan. You can search by heading keywords or dates.

What you can do in case of access problems:

- If an option for login like IP登录 exists, please try that
- If an option for licensed access like 授权使用 exists, please use it
- Empty your browser cache and try again
- Try a different browser
- Email the Chinese Studies Librarian
When off-campus access does not work correctly you can also try using Princeton University Sonic Wall VPN.