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Chinese Studies

Welcome

Happy New Year 2024! 

I hope everything is going well with all of you.  I am available on site and virtually to help you with your research questions and resources. Please send me an email at li_wang@brown.edu should you have any questions, or need to set an appointment for research consultation. We can set a personal or Zoom meeting if needed.  Thank you and have a great season!

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This database contains two parts: (1) Zhengtong Daozang 正統道藏 (Daoist Canon of the Ming Zhengtong era) (1513 titles) and (2) Daozang Jiyao 道藏輯要 (Digest of Daoist Canon) (299 titles).

Quick Links

A Navigation to Internet Resources on China Studies 中国研究网络资源导航

Searching in Chinese
For research in Chinese, searching by Romanization is a reliable way to find Chinese materials in BruKnow and such databases as WorldCat.  Use an authoritative dictionary for Romanization or refer to ALA-LC Chinese Romanization table, which library catalogers follow.  If you are not familiar with Romanization, search by Chinese script/character. Non-Roman characters and syllables can be searched as keyword, author names, and titles though all subject headings are in English.  For more information on searching in non-Roman languages, see this guide by Yale University Library.

Romanization and Word Division
About all academic libraries in North America follow Library of Congress Chinese Romanization and Word Division rules. Han yu pin yin 汉语拼音 (also called pinyin) is the Romanization rule used in catalogs of North American libraries. Wade-Giles Romanization, which was used in the North American Libraries and many publications before 2000, is still found in older books and other materials.
Word division: General rule: Separate each word except in proper names. (See examples by UT Libraries.)  For detail, see Library of Congress Chinese Romanization and word division rules

Conversion tables:
Pinyin to Wade-Giles
Wade-Giles, Zhu yin fu hao, pinyin in Wade-Giles order

Chinese-Western Calendar Converter 臺灣中央研究院兩千年中西歷轉換
This online tool was developed by the Academia Sinica of Taiwan. It covers the period from 1 to 2101 A.D.

Dictionaries and Reference Resources

Han Dian 漢典
A free website for searching Chinese characters, words and idioms, including totally 80,000 characters and 250,000 words. Visitors can search in classic dictionaries such as 說文解字, 康熙字典 and modern dictionaries using it.

Online Xinhua Dictionary 在线新华字典词典

Kangxi zi dian online (康熙字典網上版)

Classical Historigraphy for Chinese History 中國經典文獻工具書錄 (compiled by Benjamin Elman, Princeton University)

IGCS-Online Bibliographies for Chinese Studies (Heidelberg)

Online Resources for Chinese Studies in North American Libraries (Library of Congress)

CADAL 大学数字图书馆国际合作计划
A database containing more than 2,680,000 items, including books, journals, archives. Free registration required to access.

Databases and Journals

Licensed Databases (for Brown users only)

Other Databases

China Biographical Database (CBDB) 中國歷代人物傳記資料庫

This freely accessible relational database has biographical information on approximately 471,000 individuals as of November, 2020, who are primarily from the 7th through 19th centuries. The data is meant to be useful for statistical, social network and spatial analysis as well as serving as a kind of biographical reference.

Chinese Foreign Policy Database
Curates 1000s of documents from Chinese and international archives, it offers insights into China’s foreign policy since 1949 and its relationship to ideology, revolution, the economy, and traditional Chinese culture. Free access.

Hong Kong Journals Online
A full-text image database that provides access to selected academic and professional journals, in both English and Chinese that are published in Hong Kong. Titles included in this database cover a wide range of disciplines. Issues in the database vary from journal to journal, with the earliest going back to 1872.

Hong Kong Macau Periodicals Network 港澳期刊網
Developed by the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library, with contribution from the Macau University Library, this database collects Chinese and bilingual periodicals published in Hong Kong and Macau. The scope of the periodicals covers both humanities and social sciences. It indexes more than 300 periodicals. Most indexes start from issues in 1980, but important titles are indexed from their first issues.

National Taiwan University Journal Database 臺灣大學學術期刊資料庫
A full-text database of journal articles published by academic departments of the National Taiwan University from 2002 on.

Index to Taiwan Periodical Literature System 台灣期刊論文索引系統
This database indexes about 4,800 academic journals, which are mainly published in Taiwan from 1970 on. It also includes some journals published in Hong Kong and Macao.

Newspapers

Shen Bao (申報)

People's Daily (人民日报)
From 1946 to 2011; Renmin Ribao archives.

South China Morning Post

Late Qing and Republican-Era Chinese Newspapers
This is an open access database for 69 titles of old Chinese newspapers from Late Qing and Republican-Era. These titles cannot be found from other commercial databases. You may browse by titles and issues, or do keyword search to access the full-text.

Films

Films related to China (from Kanopy Films and Documentaries)

Chinese Cinema (from Kanopy Films and Documentaries)

Languages and Literature

Wang Li's Gudai Hanyu Online Reading 王力《古代汉语》在线阅读
It is a nicely transcribed version of Wang Li's 《古代汉语》(中华书局, 1999, revised edition). This e-book is a very useful tool for studying classical Chinese.

Chinese Text Sampler
An annotated collection of digitized Chinese texts for students of Chinese language and culture at the University of Michigan. Can be used with their Clavis Sinica online text reader and dictionary.

Han Dian Shi Ci 漢典詩詞

Religion

CBETA 電子佛典集成
Developed by the Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (CBETA), the website provides free browsing and downloading of a digital collection of Buddhist texts, including most editions of the Tripitaka. Registration might be necessary for better access.

Chinese Buddhist Canon Series 漢文電子大藏經系列

Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (DDB) 電子佛教辭典
Any user may access the dictionary by entering "guest" as the username, with no password. This will allow a total of 10 searches in each of the DDB and CJKV-E dictionaries in a 24-hour period.

Links for Chinese Religions and Philosophy (Joseph Adler)
Maintained by Joseph Adler, Department of Religious Studies, Kenyon College.

Data, Statistics, and GIS

National Bureau of Statistics of the People's Republic of China 中华人民共和国国家统计局 (Chinese)
National Bureau of Statistics of the People's Republic of China (English)

Census and Statistics on Hong Kong
An official statistical portal of Hong Kong. Free access.

Statistics on Taiwan
An official statistical portal of Taiwan. Free access.

China Historical GIS
Launched through Harvard University in 2001, the China Historical Geographic Information System, CHGIS, is a free database of place names and historical administrative units for the Chinese Dynasties.

Digital Humanities Projects

 

A useful guide complied by the George Washington University

China's Cultural Revolution in Memories: The CR/10 Project @ University of Pittsburgh

Contemporary Chinese Village Gazetteer Data @ University of Pittsburgh

Ivy Plus Libraries' Digital Projects on East Asia

Depicting Glory: Rare Objects from the Late Qing to the Republic of China
An ongoing DH project led by Dr. Zhuqing Li, Brown University

Digital scholarship resources for East Asian studies and beyond by University of Texas Libraries
Compiled by Committee for Technical Processing, Council for East Asian Libraries. Based on resources presented at the International conference on the cyberinfrastructure for historical China studies at Harvard China Center in Shanghai in March 2018 and the Digital Humanities Asia 2018 Summit at Stanford University in April. 2018.

Interdisciplinary Databases

Databases Accessible from Library's Website

Direct Borrow Services: BorrowDirect

Requesting Articles

How to request articles not available online at Brown.

Purchase Request

A Key for Resource Icons

KEY

full text icon = Some full text
licensed icon = Licensed for Brown
audio icon = Audio Available
video icon = Video Available
mobile icon = Mobile Access Available