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普林斯頓大學葛思德東亞圖書館 ・ プリンストン大学東アジア図書館 ・ 프린스턴 대학교 동아시아 도서관

News

Current updates can be found on the EAL Blog.

Duxiu/ Chinamaxx

February 6, 2009. Princeton users have now access to Duxiu. In very short terms, Duxiu looks like an enormous combined Google Scholar and Google Books for Chinese material. But Duxiu has its own characteristics; there is no real English equivalent. Duxiu is a huge content-based database composed of 600,000,000 full text pages, with very flexible searches (full-text, books, articles, theses, web pages, newspapers). Some text you can read immediately, other texts you can send to yourself by email. Some of the books can be purchased by the library for perpetual access, please notify us. These will be available from the general catalog, as well as directly from Chinamaxx.

 

Second printer in the EAL

November 4, 2008. In addition to the printer in the catalog room, there is now a second printer with attached release station available in the East Asian Library, in the Jones reference area between the Western language monograph collection and the Princeton dissertations. As before, when printing from EAL public machines, jobs are stored on a central library server; you can release the job on either of the two printers. Currently, OIT, who manages the printers, requires you to type in a password to send each job to the server, and that particular password is also needed to release that particular job. However, if the job-specific password matches your general Princeton password (which you need to login into the server on the release station anyway), you will not be asked to retype that password to release each job. Hence, we suggest you use your Princeton password at all times. For printing related problems, contact Martin Heijdra or Tom Ventimiglia or use this form.

Chinese Doctor and Master Dissertations

November 4, 2008. Princeton users have now access to (some) Chinese full-text doctor and master dissertations from the PRC in the fields of literature, history and philosophy (only). Not all dissertations at all institutions are made available, but the number is growing (current total is 7,000). Access is through the general CNKI home page at http://china.eastview.com/. Please report any issues to Martin Heijdra. Note that some Taiwanese full-text dissertations are available at http://etds.ncl.edu.tw/theabs/index.html; titles not available for free there are also not available for purchase.

China Academic Journals

October 23, 2008. Princeton users have now access to the full-text articles in all categories of the China Academic Journals Full-text Database. To the previously available categories of Literature/History/Philosophy, Politics/Military Affairs/Law, Education/Social Sciences, Economy/Management, and the previously only partially available category of Electronic Information/Information Science, have now been added the categories of Science/Engineering (A/B/C), Agriculture, and Medicine/Hygiene, and the unsubscribed parts of Electronic Information/Information Science. In all cases, subscribed content includes the original titles digitized since 1994, as well as for all pre-1994 issues for these. Not included are titles already ceased before 1994. Please report any issues to Martin Heijdra.

Zasshi kiji sakuin dētā bēsu

October 23, 2008. Princeton users have now access to the Zasshi kiji sakuin dētabēsu (The complete database of Japanese magazine and periodicals from the Meiji Era to the present). This is an index to periodical articles published in Japanese, including those in former Japanese colonies, and including local periodicals not present in many other indexes. Coverage is from 1868 onwards. Please contact Yasuko Makino in case of problems.

Korean New Books

October 23, 2008. With the arrival of the new Korean Studies Librarian, Hyoungbae Lee, the “new arrivals" book case will henceforth include Korean books.

China Doctor/Master Dissertations

August 22, 2008. Princeton users can try out the "China Doctor/Master Dissertations" databases, until the end of August.The URL is the same as for the China Academic Journals. Please send comments to Martin Heijdra.

Zhongyang Ribao (Central Daily News) 1928-1949

June 25, 2008. Princeton users now have access to the 1928-1949 issues of the Zhongyang Ribao (Central Daily News), Taiwan. You can search by heading keywords or dates, and retrieve pdf images per page.

Project Workstation

June 25, 2008. There is now available for use a “Project Workstation” in the East Asian Library, located in the Jones Reference Room. This workstation includes a 12" x 17" 12800 dpi scanner, a 20" flat-screen display, and a Dell computer running Windows Vista. In addition to the standard software available on library web computers, this workstation offers scanning and DVD/CD burning software as well as a suite of the latest Adobe tools, including Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Flash and Photoshop. Simple instructions are available.

Yomiuri Shinbun

June 25, 2008. Coverage of the Yomiuri Shinbun archives has been increased from Meiji-1960 to Meiji-1970. Current articles from 1986 are still available in the Yomidasu Bunshokan database. You still will need to contact Yasuko Makino or Martin Heijdra for the password. There are some issues remaining with printing to the shared public printers, and uncommon private ones; please let us know if you have problems. We are actively working on finding better solutions for these database from within the East Asian Library.

America , Asia and the Pacific: the Edward Sylvester Morse Collection

May 7, 2008. Princeton users now have access to the English-language multidisciplinary archives containing diaries, sketches, travel journals, scrapbooks, publications and correspondence of the polymath and collector Morse, known for his work in natural history (zoology, evolution, astronomy, methodology), ethnography (material culture, music, games, printing, Ainu, religion) and art history (including archaeology, architecture) bridging Japan and America from the 1880s to the 1920s.

Edward Sylvester Morse (1838-1925) was one of the earliest and most important mediators between American and Asian societies, and one of the first Americans to live in Japan (he became Chair of Zoology at the new Imperial University of Tokyo). In addition to his scientific interests, in 1882 he turned his attention to ethnology and the documentation of life in Japan before it was transformed by Western modernization. An accomplished draughtsman, his pencil and ink drawings, enliven his diaries and correspondence and make his papers a pleasure to read. Morse’s collection of Japanese pottery is still a prized possession of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and his ethnological specimens form the core of the oriental holdings at the Peabody, where he was Director from 1880 to 1916.

China: Trade, Politics and Culture 1793-1980

May 6, 2008. Princeton users now have access to the China : Trade, Politics and Culture database, based mainly, but not exclusively, upon the holdings of the Library of the School for Oriental and African Studies and the British Library. The database consists of all kinds of English-language textual and visual sources relating to China and the West, with key documents relating to the Chinese Maritime Customs service, letters, diaries, color paintings, maps, drawings, photographs, and fully searchable missionary periodicals such as the Chinese Recorder. Important subjects treated include the Amherst and Macartney embassies, the Opium, Boxer, Russo-Japanese and Sino-Japanese wars, events such as the Taiping Rebellion, and the Rape of Nanking, and the missionary movements.

Kikuzō II bijuaru for libraries

April 18 , 2008. Access to the (Asahi Shinbun) Kikuzō II database (previously available as a trial) is now official. It covers texts (in image format) from the Asahi Shinbun from 1945 to 1984, texts (in text format) from 1985 until present, and texts and images from November 2005. The 1945-1984 articles are searchable by headings and assigned topics only, the articles from 1984 are fully searchable. The weekly journal Aera and the news column of Shūkan Asahi are included, as is the latest edition of Chiezō, the annual dictionary of new words. To log-in, click on "スタート画面へ (SSL)". At this moment, access is for one concurrent user only; please make sure to log out when you are done.

China Academic Journals (CAJ) Full-Text Database (including the Century Journal Project)

January 2, 2008. Princeton users now have greatly increased access to Chinese academic journal articles. Previously, articles from the journals included in our CAJ subscription (which included the sections of Literature, History, Philosophy, Economics, Politics, Law, Education, Social Science, and Library Science) were available only from 1994. Last year, some hundred titles were available from their first issue, whenever that was. Now, virtually ALL journals included in the CAJ (i.e., still currently published titles) are available from their first issue, going back in some cases to 1915. In our tests the number of available results for a particular search was generally quadrupled.

The additional articles are folded into the previous database, and there is no change of URL or interface; you can search as before. It may take some time before the electronic availability is fully reflected in our on-line catalog by title however.

Please report problems to the Chinese Bibliographer or use this form. Note that all articles with a blue disk icon should be available to you; articles with a greyed-out icon may not be available due to publisher's restrictions etc.

TBMC databases trial

December 12, 2007. We have a trial until end March 2008 to 21 databases from the Taiwanese company TBMC. The databases are divided in 4 main series: Ancient Chinese Works (including reference materials on the Hong lou meng and poetry), the Taiwan Study Series (including Japanese newspapers and a Taiwan Who's Who going back to 1898), a Newspaper series (including Taiwan TV News), and a General Study series (including the Tianxia magazine.)

Not all databases (especially the newspapers) are fully included; the trial may give only access to a specific range of dates. A few databases need the FlipViewer software (a Mac version is available); note that security settings do not allow you to install this or other software on Princeton public machines.

We already have access to two databases on the list (Udndata [Lianhebao] and the Chinese Encyclopedic Dictionary); any further subscriptions depend very much on feedback. Please notify the Chinese Bibliographer of your experiences and wishes (or use this form).

Zhongwen baike dacidian (Chinese Encyclopedic Dictionary)

November 26. 2007. Princeton users now have access to the (Taiwanese) Chinese illustrated encyclopedic dictionary the Zhong wen bai ke da ci dian with more than 11,000 characters, 20,000 terms, 50, 000 entries, 4,300 colour illustrations and 3,000 diagrams.

CADAL

November 26, 2007. Princeton users are alerted to the existence of a huge searchable database of Chinese out-of-copyright works maintained by the China-America Digital Academic Library at Zhejiang University.

La Chine ancienne : les auteurs chinois

November 26, 2007. Princeton users are alerted to the existence of a database of digitized works by 19th and early 20th century authors on Chinese subjects in French, including works by Biot, Chavannes, Couvreur, Granet, Maspero, Pelliot, etc.

Academia Sinica databases

November 26, 2007. The Academia Sinica Scripta Sinica database with titles digitized by the Institute of History and Philology of the Academia Sinica, Taipei, has greatly improved its interface. It includes now 350 million characters (Nov. 2007). Read the help screens for more information on its new features. Since the database is now UTF-8, there is no longer a need for downloading any additional font. The 3rd-party databases at the Academia Sinica which were previously available by clicking “ziliaoku” in the top menu bar of http://www.sinica.edu.tw/~tdbproj/handy1/ (i.e., those not listed there as 史語所漢基全文資料庫計劃; these include the Qingdai jingshei wenbian, Zhengtong Daozang, Cihua jicheng and others, for an additional 100 million characters) are still available there; however for the IHP titles such as the Hanji quanwen ziliaoku you should use the updated Scripta Sinica version.

Lawinfochina/ Chinalawinfo

October 29. Princeton users now have access to the sister legal retrieval systems Lawinfochina and Chinalawinfo; the former contains English, the latter Chinese material. Included are all laws adopted by the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee from 1949; all administrative regulations promulgated by the State Council from 1949; many other rules or orders issued by other agencies; important judicial interpretations and other regulations impacting foreign-related activities; judicial cases from the Gazette of the Supreme People’s Court (also in English); Sino-foreign tax treaties; and other legal news and matter.

The two databases are interlinked through the buttons “Chinese” and “English”. Access is only for one concurrent user.

Quan guo bao kan suo yin

September 19. Princeton users now have IP-access to a greatly renewed version of the Quan guo bao kan suo yin. This index, compiled by the Shanghai Library, provides access to Chinese article titles from 1857 onwards to the present. On the first screen, click on “用户登录” to gain access to the database search page; the periodical index you have access to (Pian ming) should have already been selected by default. Once a citation has been found, check the Princeton holdings to retrieve the article itself, or put in an ILL request. You cannot request the article from the Shanghai Library directly even it it looks that way from the display screen; however, our ILL office will have that possibility.

This database incorporates, and updates, several databases previously only available on one special EAL computer: four Quan guo bao kan zi liao suo yin databases (1950-1979, 1980-1992, 1993-1999, 2000), the Zhongguo jindai qikan pianmu database (1857-1919), and the Minguo shi qi pian ming database (1920-1949). As of Sept. 2007, more than 11 million entries are included.

Udndata

September 13. Princeton users now have access to "Udndata", a database of full-text newspapers from the Taiwanese Lianhebao (United Daily News) group. Among the included newspapers are the Lianhebao (1951-), Jingji ribao (Economic Daily News, 1967-), the Minshengbao (Min Sheng Daily, 1988-2006), Lianhe wanbao (United Evening News, 1993-), the Xingbao (Star News, 1999-2006), the Meizhou Shijie Ribao (2000-), the Ouzhou Ribao (2000-), and the Upaper (2007-). The complete digitization of the entire run of each individual newspaper is planned.

Note that you cannot search the Encyclopedia Britannica nor the four magazines listed on the search page.

Ren min Ri bao (China Daily)

August 8, 2007. All issues 1946-2006 of the Chinese national newspaper Ren min Ri bao (The China Daily) are now available on-line to Princeton users. For later issues please go directly to the current Renmin Ribao site.

The database contains the full text-online; in addition it has the original pages in PDF format. If you just need to search the database and print out the text from the browser, you do not need to have special settings. However, to access and print the original pages in pdf format, a complicated (and time-consuming) installation process is necessary, and particular versions of Acrobat Reader are needed; see instructions below. Without going through that process, clicking on the pdf icon will result in empty pdf files.

You need to be on campus, or use VPN etc. to access these sources. The second computer from the left in the catalog room has the necessary software for printing installed.

INSTRUCTIONS

Administrative privileges are needed.

1. Change the Windows XP system default language to Chinese PRC.
   (choose in the Control Panel->Regional and Language Options->Advanced->Language for non-Unicode programs "Chinese PRC". ) You can reset this back to English US after you finished the complete installation process below.
2. Make sure your Adobe Reader is version 8.0; upgrade if necessary.
3. Install the necessary Asian FontPacks for Adobe Reader 8.0, making sure that the FontPack80_zh_CN.msi is installed. (Other East Asian languages depend on your personal choices.) The Asian FontPacks can be downloaded from the following URLs:

   簡體中文http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/8.x/8.0/misc/FontPack80_zh_CN.msi
   韓文 http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/8.x/8.0/misc/FontPack80_ko_KR.msi
   日文 http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/8.x/8.0/misc/FontPack80_ja_JP.msi
   繁體中文 http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/8.x/8.0/misc/FontPack80_zh_TW.msi

4. Download the Renmin Ribao fonts pack for (PDFonts.exe) and a Adobe Reader 8 special patch (PDClientPatch4AR8.zip) from
   ftp://ftp.twinbridge.com/Public/PDSetup/PDSetup4AR8/ . Note that the size of the FontPack is very large (307 MB!) and will take some time to download.
5. Install the fonts pack by double-clicking on it. The fonts installed will also be available to your usual programs.
6. Unzip the PDClientPatch4AR8.zip file. Then run "apple.exe", and then run "patch8.exe"
7. Make sure that the “Display PDF in browser” checkbox in Adobe Reader 8.0 is *unchecked*. Restart your machine to apply the setting.
8. When opening a Renmin Ribao PDF file, click “ 打印人民日報” on the left navigation area to print. Do not use the “Print” function on the Adobe Reader toolbar. You can make selections of the page. Printing speed will vary depending on the complexity and size of the job.

Nikkoku Online

July 18, 2007. We have subscribed to “Nikkoku Online,” the online version of the Nihon kokugaku daijiten, the standard dictionary of the Japanese language. Included are 500,000 entries, with over one million usage samples (with sources indicated). It is searchable by complete and partial match.

Periopath/ Zhonghua minguo qikan lunwen suoyin WWW-ban

May 15, 2007. We have IP-access to the Zhonghua minguo qikan lunwen suoyin WWW-ban (English name: Periopath; click on "進入系統" to enter the search page). This database indexes close to 2 million articles in Chinese (and English) published in more than 4000 Taiwanese periodicals from 1970 to current; it is updated each quarter. It extends the freely available NCL indexes for the last 10 years with the entries in the previously printed indexes of the same name. Articles listed with the icon have been scanned and are without copyright; they can be viewed, downloaded and printed with the HyView reader downloadable from the Home page (軟体下載). You need administrative privileges; for version 3.3 your system has to be set to Traditional Chinese; an upcoming version 3.4 will work under your Western system as well. (You can ask Martin Heijdra for a beta-version, and send in any comments.) Articles with a icon are fee-based and not available to patrons; if not available in the East Asian Library, you can request them through InterLibrary Loan in the usual way.

Taiwan Electronic Periodicals Services

December 4, 2006. Princeton has subscribed to the TEPS (Taiwan Electronic Periodicals Service) database, which offers more than 450 Taiwanese periodicals from different subjects (of which 100+ humanities, 275+ social sciences; coverage varies, oldest go back to 1991). Full texts can be downloaded in PDF format. Make sure to use the search button provided for; the enter button will not give results.

National Palace Museum Online Image Database

December 4, 2006. Princeton has subscribed to the (Taiwan) National Palace Museum Image database, for which we had a trial subscription until Oct 31 at http://www.airiti.com/npmoln/. This database is of use to Art students and faculty especially, and everyone else interested in material culture.

Gu jin tu shu ji cheng

November 29, 2006. The URL for the Gu jin tu shu ji cheng has changed.

Keijō Nippō/ Kyŏngsŏng Ilbo (Kyungsung Ilbo)

November 3, 2006. Subscription started to the scanned version of the Keijō Nippō (Kyŏngsŏng Ilbo, also spelled Kungsung Ilbo), a Japanese language newspaper published in Korea during the Occupation Period. Current content is from 1907 to 1935. Access is by date only.

Web Oya-bunko

November 1, 2006. Access to the Web Oya-bunko, which had been discontinued outside Japan by the vendor on March 31, 2006, has been restored. The database indexes more than 400 popular journals in Japanese not covered by MagazinePlus, and has more than 2 million entries. Coverage is from 1988 to present, updated monthly.

China Academic Journals/ China National Knowledge Infrastructure

August 15, 2006. Important changes have been made to the CAJ interface. Primary searching will take place within the China National Knowledge Infrastructure superset of databases, of which the familiar CAJ is only one database. One will be able to browse by journal title and issue, and not just search by article titles.A new database, the Century Journal Project has one hundred of the most important titles in a variety of subjects going back to the very first issue, beyond the previous starting date of 1994; this list includes such titles as Li shi yan jiu (1954-), Mei shu yan jiu (1956-), Wen wu (1950-), Shi jie zong jiao yan jiu (1980-), Kao gu (1959-), Wen xue ping lun (1959-), Dian ying yi shu (1956-), Jing ji yan jiu (1955-), and She hui ke xue zhan xian (1978-). Currently users have the option to choose the new CNKI platform alongside the familiar older CAJ platform, but soon the latter will be faced out. Please report any problems to Martin Heijdra.

Guoxue baodian

August 15 , 2006. We have subscribed to the Guoxue baodian database, a full-text searching tool for almost 4,000 classical Chinese texts, including some novels, poetry, and plays. The home page contains a table of contents. There is the capability to search and display in Traditional characters, fantizi as well as Simplified characters, jiantizi. Issues found during a previous trial have been largely addressed. Please send all your comments on scope or usability to Martin Heijdra.

Chosŏn Ilbo

May 2, 2006. The Chosŏn Ilbo (Korea Daily) Archive is a full-text online newspaper starting from 1920 and includes over 2.6 million articles in Korean. An average of 6,000 pages are added each year.

Academia Sinica Hanji wenxian ziliaoku

March 31, 2006. Princeton users now have access to the very large set of databases compiled by the Academia Sinica in Taiwan. The total listed number of characters contained is 475 million. The URL on first use is http://www.sinica.edu.tw/~tdbproj/handy1/ . Click on the word " 資料庫 " (ziliaoku) in the top bar to get to the listing of the primary 21 databases (you can then bookmark that page, but the official URL will not change.) Click on titles until you arrive at the spot you want to search. All the databases listed there, including those listed as restricted, are available for use to Princeton users, including the Daozang, the Qingdai jingshi wenbian, the Qing shilu, and the Taiwan wenxian congkan. Some of these primary databases, especially the Hanji quanwen ziliaoku, are by themselves huge compilations: that one has more than 600 titles, including such large ones as the Ming shilu. You can download a spreadsheet listing all titles.

For best use in Internet Explorer, you should download the special font for 4555 additional characters outside the Big-5 set. If installed in the following way, they will improve display within your browser (if not installed, such characters will display as empty spaces; you might not know something is missing.) These characters do not copy into regular programs such as Word; moreover, attempts to copy such sentences directly into Word may result in unexpected behavior. The best results (no unexpected behavior except for the additional characters at stake appearing as empty boxes) obtain if you copy the required text into Notepad before copying it again into Word. To download that font: click on 安裝造字 (anzhuang zaozi) in the top menu; click on "eudc.exe" to download that file to your hard drive. Double click on this saved file to extract its two constituent files, eudc.tte and eudccj.tbl. Disregarding the second, move the first file into the Windows Fonts folder (available in the Control Panel window) in order to install this font.

If you encounter problems, please feel free to contact Martin Heijdra.

Asia-Studies Full-text Online

March 10, 2006. The Asia-Studies Full-text Online is a collection of largely IGO/NGO materials coming from Asian countries in English, including East Asia. The trial has ended, and subscription is under way.

National Diet Library Digital Archive Portal (Japan)

March 10, 2006. The Digital Archive Portal of the Japanese National Diet Library is now open to the public. It gives access to a large number of digital resources in Japan; interface is in Japanese only.

Guide to Statistical Materials for Japan

March 10, 2006. Patrons needing access to Japanese statistical resources will be helped by looking at the Statistical Materials for Learning about Japan at the National Diet Library. It introduces major statistical materials on Japan written in English, or in both Japanese and English, in the form of printed publications and Internet information.

Zhongguo lidai shike shiliao huibian

Jan 20, 2006. A new Chinese database for epigraphical material, the Zhongguo lidai shike shiliao huibian《中国历代石刻史料汇编》has been installed on 3 public machines in the East Asian Library catalog room. On those public machines, click on Start, select All programs, and select the icon for 中国历代石刻. On the logon screen, both ID and password are "guest". It does not accept a blank password as do most databases there.

Annals of the Choson dynasty

Jan 1, 2006. The Annals of the Choson Dynasty database has been opened up for free to the public by the Kuksa Pyonchan Wiwonhoe. You can find both the original character texts as well as the hangul equivalents. It is recommended to download the special fonts onto your personal computer before using the database.

Zhongwen guji shumu ziliaoku

October 24, 2005. All public computers within the East Asian Library now have access to the international Zhongwen guji shumu ziliaoku, a union list of Chinese rare books held at 25 institutions in Taiwan, the PRC, and the United States. Searching from other computers is not possible. You may occasionally have to set the pages manually to the Traditional Chinese encoding system (via View>Encoding>).

Yomiuri Shinbun Current Articles

September 23, 2005. The Yomiuri Shinbun is a full text database of the Yomiuri Shinbun from Meiji to 1960 . You will need to contact Yasuko Makino or Martin Heijdra for the password. There are some issues remaining with printing to the shared public printers, and uncommon private ones; please let us know.

Jitsū Japanese dictionary

September 15, 2005. Princeton has subscribed to an electronic high-level Japanese dictionary, Shirakawa Shizuka’s Jitsū. The dictionary can be accessed from within the Japan Knowledge database, or directly.

Yomiuri Shinbun Current Articles

February 23, 2005. Yomidasu Bunshokan is a full text database of the Yomiuri Shinbun covering 3.3 million articles. It includes the national edition since 1986, and local editions since 1998. It also includes a Who's who, and the English-language Daily Yomiuri. 

Digital Dictionary of Buddhism

Jan. 25, 2005. Princeton University has now a site license to Charles Muller's Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, previously only available to students in particular seminars. In addition to Chinese, Japanese and Korean information, it also includes Indian, Tibetan and other references. The link goes to the wider Resources for East Asian Language and Thought Web page; the restricted digital dictionary is available from that page.

China Vitae database

Dec. 16, 2004. Links have been put up to the China Vitae database, which has detailed biographies of nearly 2500 Chinese leaders, searchable by name, institution, or location. Other tools allow identification of similarities in the backgrounds of officials and tracking of daily appearances of 200 of the most important officials.

Move of East Asian Library URL

Dec. 8, 2004. The Web pages have moved to a new URL: http://eastasianlib.princeton.edu/ Older links should continue to work. Report eventual problems to Martin Heijdra.

Computerized Database of Bronze Inscriptions

Dec. 7, 2004. A Computerized Database of Bronze Inscriptions has been added to the four already available CHANT databases.

Si bu cong kan

Dec. 7, 2004. Access to the Si bu cong kan database has been activated on selected machines in the East Asian Library. Use is similar to the Si ku quan shu database. The Si bu cong kan is a fully searchable collection of 504 original and historical works (3134 volumes) published by the Commercial Press from 1919 to 1936.The original collection used photolithography, which resulted in better editions than the then-available typeset editions. Therefore, the editions in the Si bu cong kan are considered to be authoritative.

Gu jin tu shu ji cheng

Nov. 11, 2004. The  Princeton Library has a subscription to the full-text version of the Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, the 18th-century Chinese Encyclopaedia of 10,000 juan and 1.6 billion characters. Both full-text searching and browsing are available. Click on "IP Access" to get in. See for URL Nov. 29, 2006.

China Data Online

Oct. 21, 2004. China Data Online offers comprehensive statistical and economic information of China. Included are yearly and monthly macro- and micro-economic databases, city, county and industry-based statistics, as well as the contents of many statistical yearbooks.

If you do not see the “Welcome: Princeton University” message on the top banner, click on the “Direct Access to Institutional Users” line. For best results, set the encoding of your browser to Simplified Chinese (GB): this will display bullets and other symbols better, although the text is always in English.

JapanKnowledge.

May 14, 2004. JapanKnowledge includes major Japanese encyclopedias, language and biographical dictionaries, who's who databases, maps, and much more.

China Civilization in Space and Time.

May 5, 2004. A Web-based GIS system with historical maps, integrated with full-text databases from the Academia Sinica. Includes place name search. Can be used without registration, but personal registration (free to Princeton users) is recommended for saving and printing. Download of two special plug-ins is necessary before first use. Click on "Framework", then "Enter CCTS System", or click on "Search" to find place names.

Web Oya-bunko

November 1, 2003. Princeton patrons now have access to the Japanese Web Oya-bunko database. Based on the voluminous magazine collection of Oya Soichi, this periodical index includes over 1,7 million journal articles since 1988, collected from 370 magazines including many minor ones. It is an addition to MagazinePlus. Click on the log-in button from the Home page.

ILL Changes

July 2, 2003. The East Asian Library uses now the automated ILLiad system for its ILL services. Henceforth, you should fill out your request on-line at http://libapdl380.princeton.edu/illiad/logon.html. First-time users need to register at http://libapdl380.princeton.edu/illiad/ILLLogon_main.html

If you are a faculty member and have already registered for Article Express service, you may log on using your Article Express user name and password.
As before, EAL librarians will be able to help you locate a book, but only you can actually initiate the request.

By default, all requests of patrons not belonging to the East Asian Departmentwill be handled by Firestone Library, regardless of language. You still can specify the pick-up location as the East Asian Library if you wish, with the possible increase in time for filled requests to reach there.
If you often request difficult-to-find Chinese or Japanese materials, it may be preferable to have your complete account transferred to the East Asian Library, where librarians can help you better and/or faster. If you wish to do so, please send a request to that effect to gestcirc@princeton.edu, with as subject "ILL Account Transfer Request". Note that if you choose this option, all your requests will be handled at the East Asian Library, regardless of language and pick-up location.

Chinese Ancient Texts Databases (CHANT)

February 7, 2003. IP Access is established to the CHANT 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"). Two additional databases include oracle bones, and excavated wood/bamboo texts. For more information, see the database page.

Reconversion Project

March 25, 2002 the important East Asian Library "Recon" Project will begin. This long-awaited project will convert all pre-1984 CJK books in the East Asian Library into electronic records within the general main catalog, and is expected to take two years.

Because during this time part of our shelf list cards will be unavailable for normal usage, it occasionally may happen that we need to call a patron for the title of a recently charged book which had not been checked out during the last decade. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but we hope that will be offset by the benefits of finally being able to search all of our books electronically. We appreciate your understanding.

Electronic Si ku quan shu Database

March 11, 2002: The electronic Siku quanshu database is up and running. A description and a guide is available. Client software will be available on Windows2000 computers in the East Asian Library, and on faculty office computers on request. The program is not very intuitive, yet very powerful; users are urged to contact the Chinese Bibliographer for introduction sessions. You may contact him by email or use this form.

ChinaInfoBank:

March 1, 2002: Princeton has suscribed to "ChinaInfoBank". It is composed of major financial, economic and business data (including statistics), but since it covers many Chinese newspapers, it is very useful outside those subjects as well.

The database is accessible from any campus/library computer, at http://www.chinainfobank.com. While it has some English language information as well, the Chinese data are of course paramount. Use any GB-encoded input system: the input systems for Simplified Chinese provided free with Internet Explorer on any version of Windows work fine.

Please let us know if you have any problems and/or questions via the Contacts page.

National Palace Museum Periodicals

February 2002: The Marquand Library has subscribed to the Database of National Palace Museum Periodicals. It is available from any Princeton computer, and provides access to images and texts of all issues of the following four periodicals published since 1966 by the National Palace Museum in Taibei, Taiwan: the Gu gong wen wu yue kan (National Palace Museum Monthly of Chinese Art), the Gu gong ji kan (National Palace Museum Quarterly), the Gu gong xue shu ji kan (National Palace Museum Research Quarterly), and the English National Palace Museum Bulletin. Searches are possible through direct input, as well as through browsing classification and author tables. The Chinese encoding used is Big-5. Click on the "Welcome: Database of NPM" logo.

Pinyin Conversion

What is "pinyin conversion" about?

Some years ago, a nation-wide decision was made by the Library of Congress to change its transcription system for Chinese from Wade-Giles, widely used in libraries, to Pinyin, widely used in other media. After years of preparation, this unprecedented conversion process has taken place, with far-reaching implications for the public and technical services alike.

This document explains in some detail this project and its implications. [Note: the parts in italics and within brackets are detailed explanations for users with great familiarity with the Princeton Libraries; an average user can safely skip them over.]

What is affected and how?

First, the transcription of Chinese titles, authors, place names etc. of all electronic records for material in Chinese. Secondly, the spelling of such Chinese fields as authors, uniform [original] titles etc. in records in other languages, such as English or Japanese.

It is important to realize that manula review of the automatic conversion will take time, and that until ALL electronic records of ALL libraries are changed, some records will be transcribed using one system, and others using the other. This document explains what the recommended search strategies are in particular cases below.

[The conversion was done mainly by machine algorithms, with considerable manual review and editing remaining.]

How do I recognize Pinyin from Wade-Giles?

Not all syllables are differently transcribed in Wade-Giles and Pinyin. Other transcriptions transcribe different sounds but are spelled the same, so cannot be used to easily differentiate the two systems either.

Clear indicators of Wade-Giles are:

• the occurrence of apostrophes and/or ayns ('‘ ') after consonants except for n'g (ch'a, t'ien etc.)
• a syllable ending on –h (chieh, chih, erh, lüeh, shih etc.);
• the letter combinations hs-, -ien, ts-, tz-, -ung and yü.

Clear indicators of Pinyin are:

• the letters or letter combinations b-, d-, g-, -ian, –ong, q-, r-, x-, z-, and zh-.

[For circulating pre-1984 East Asian Library items without a full RLIN catalog record there are several situations. Interim records originating from GEAC may be in a Simplified Wade-Giles, without apostrophes, ayns or diacritic, and may contain typographical errors. Temporary records created in Notis use correct Wade-Giles. Searching in Voyager using correct or Simplified Wade-Giles gives the same result however. Such records will not be converted to Pinyin in the current project, and are to be used for status information only. The note identifying a GEAC record as interim has been removed; temporary records created in Notis still have a 653 field. Newly created Voyager brief circulation records will be in Pinyin.]

What are some additional library conventions for Wade-Giles and Pinyin?

Libraries have some additional conventions for transcribing Chinese different from the general community, and patrons should be aware of these. All syllables except for those in names are written separately, with spaces in between, not with hyphens nor run together. In personal names, library Wade-Giles does use hyphens (Ts'ao Hsüeh-chin), and library Pinyin runs the syllables together (Cao Xueqin). Place names and some personal names may be treated differently from either system: Confucius, Hong Kong.

How do I search most effectively?

Post-1984 Chinese items in the East Asian Library, plus pre-1984 Chinese items outside the East Asian Library:

Voyager: search in Pinyin; for some items still to be manually converted, search in Wade-Giles as well.
Eureka/WorldCat: search in Pinyin

Pre-1984 Chinese items in the East Asian Library:

Search the East Asian Library card catalogs in Wade-Giles. For status information, additionally search in Voyager using primarily Wade-Giles, and secondarily, Pinyin.

For Chinese fields in non-Chinese items: search Pinyin first, Wade-Giles second.