Database trial for Chinese and Japanese ancient books

Some of us may have already used Diaolong Complete Si Ku Series (in Databases A-Z) that we have subscribed to for the last few years. This resource is part of a larger database which also contains many more pre-1911 Chinese books as well as several thousand volumes of Japanese books. The database is called Diaolong Full-text Database of Chinese & Japanese Ancient Books — 雕龍中日古籍全文資料庫.

The University Library has now set up a trial of this whole database. The trial will be added to the E-resources Trials website: http://edin.ac/e-resources-trials very soon. Meanwhile, you can access the trial directly at the following website on the University network or via VPN while off campus:

The trial will end on 31 August 2022, with a possible subscription depending on feedback and library budget.

Diaolong Full-text Database of Chinese & Japanese Ancient Books contains about 30,000 ancient books which cover a wide range of subjects including history, religion, philosophy, literature, politics, economics, medicine and local gazetteers. The page display can be in scanned images, in transcribed texts, or in both side by side. The huge number of books are sourced from 21  large series titles which can be searched or browsed. These 21 series are:

  1. Daozang (道藏, 1513 book titles / 5878 vols)
  2. Daozang jiyao (道藏辑要, 299 / 2553)
  3. Sibu congkan (四部叢刊, 472 / 13685)
  4. Xu Sibu congkan (續四部叢刊, 364 / 15328)
  5. Yongle dadian (永樂大典, 813 / 813)
  6. Gujin Tushu Jicheng (古今圖書集成, 33 / 10012)
  7. Dunhuang shiliao(敦煌史料,2952 / 2955)
  8. Qingdai shiliao (清代史料, 113 / 10832)
  9. Zhongguo difangzhi (中國地方誌, 2137 / 52022)
  10. Zhongguo difangzhi xuji (中國地方誌續集,1939 / 37477)
  11. Zhongguo difangzhi sanji (中國地方誌三集,2090 / 18309)
  12. Riben gudian shujiku (日本古典書籍庫, 618 / 7400)
  13. Siku quanshu (四庫全書, 3541 / 92074)
  14. Xuxiu Siku quanshu (續修四庫全書, 5550 / 104703)
  15. Siku cunmu (四庫存目,4350 / 65551)
  16. Siku wei shou shu (四庫未收書,167 / 2479)
  17. Siku jin hui shu (四庫禁毀書,620 / 13342)
  18. Liufu wencang (六府文藏, 7717 / 149576)
  19. Zhongguo minjian wenxue (中國民間文學,203 / 538)
  20. Qingdai keju zhujuan (清代科舉硃卷, 1071 / 7792)
  21. Yi jia ku (醫家庫,1033 / 9362)

Feedback would be much appreciated.

Scoop a student award for using digital library resources in Chinese

The Library subscribes to two databases from CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastruture): China Academic Journals and China Doctoral and Masters Dissertations Full-text Database. These databases are receiving very high usage across all three Colleges of the University, and our overall usage is the highest in the UK.

CNKI is offering database users opportunities to win packs of awards for using CNKI e-resources. Please see https://cnki.mike-x.com/Fe8LP, with links to:

The prizes are:

  1. Zhuang Yuan (状元) Prize: a plaque and $800 BOOK grants( $300 for books at Amazon, $500 for ebook from CNKI)
  2. Bang Yan (榜眼) Prize: a plaque and $500 BOOK grants ($200 for books at Amazon, $300 for ebook from CNKI)
  3. Tan Hua (探花) Prize: a plaque and $300 BOOK grants ($100 for books at Amazon, $200 for ebook from CNKI)
  4. Jin Shi (进士) Prize: a plaque and $100 BOOK grants ($100 for ebook from CNKI) and over 100 other prizes for learning chances of learning and researching on China.

The names Zhuang Yuan, Bang Yan, Tan Hua and Jin Shi are the titles of top winners in the imperial examinations of pre-1911 China.

Database trial – Global Newsstream

The Library has just arranged a free trial of Global Newsstream from ProQuest. The trial has been advertised in the Library’s E-resources Trials website http://edin.ac/e-resources-trials and can be accessed on and off campus via University login.

Global Newsstream enables users to search the most recent global news content, as well as archives which stretch back into the 1980s featuring content from newspapers, newswires, and news sites in active full-text format. This product provides one of the largest collections of news from the US, Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Australia. All titles are cross-searchable on the ProQuest platform allowing researchers easy access to multiple perspectives, resources, and languages on the topic they are researching.

Coverage: 1980 – current. Trial ends: 7th Aug 2020.

It includes the following sub-databases:

Canadian Newsstream

Full text of over 190 Canadian newspapers from Canada’s leading publishers. This full text database includes the complete available electronic backfile for most newspapers, providing full access to the articles, columns, editorials and features published in each. Some backfiles date as far back as the late 1970s. View title list.

Global Breaking Newswires

Provides timely access to the best newswire content available globally as well as growing archive of news that may not be captured in any of the traditional print sources. View title list.

International Newsstream

Provides the most recent news content outside of the US and Canada, with archives which stretch back decades featuring newspapers, newswires, and news sites in active full-text format. View title list. It consists of the following Nesstreams:

  • Asian Newsstream — more than 60 of the most respected national and regional sources of news and current affairs information in Asia and the Far East. View title list.
  • Australia & New Zealand Nesstream — offers access to leading Australian and New Zealand newspapers. View title list.
  • European Newsstream — contains 552 national and regional newspapers and other news sources from across Europe. View title list.
  • Latin American Newsstream — includes titles from Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, Peru, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. Latin American Newsstream provides newspapers in Spanish and Portuguese. Key newspaper titles include: El Universal (Mexico City);O Globo (Brazil);La Nación (Argentina);and El Mercurio (Chile). View title list.
  • Middle East & African Newsstream — newspapers, news wires, websites, and blogs from leading publishers throughout the region. Sources include The Jerusalem Post, the Gulf Daily News, Kuwait Times, Cape Times, and Yemen Times, among many others. It includes backfiles as far back as 1988. View title list.

U.S. Newsstream

Provides the most recent premium U.S. news content, as well as archives which stretch back into the 1980s featuring newspapers, newswires, blogs, and news sites in active full-text format. For academic and public libraries, U.S. Newsstream offers exclusive access to the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and co-exclusive access (with Factiva) to The Wall Street Journal. View title list.

We already subscribe to two full-text global newspaper databases: Factiva and Nexis UK. It’d be useful to compare these sources. Feedback welcome.

CNKI Open Access Platform for Chinese literature on COVID-19

CNKI, provider of our Library subscribed databases “China Academic Journals” and “China Doctoral & Masters Dissertations Full-text Databases”, has just launched an Open Access Platform for all Chinese literature published regarding the current new coronavirus known as COVID-19 – http://cajn.cnki.net/gzbd/brief/Default.aspx (Chinese version). The platform will have an English version very soon. All the articles are in Chinese. New articles are being added every day.

Database trial – CNKI English resources

The Library has arranged a free trial of three English resources from CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure): China Data Insight, Academic Focus, and Journal Translation Project, covering all subject areas in humanities, social sciences, science and technology, and medicine.

The trial has been advertised on the Library E-resources Trials website. The trial is valid until 30th Nov. 2019. EASE login is required for access:

CNKI English Resources

Just click on each database in Step 1 as indicated in the screenshot below to gain direct access:

China Data Insights provides access to more than 1,083 statistical yearbooks with 8,446 volumes and 1.49 million tables. There is a linked Chinese version with more data.

Academic Focus contains 262 English journals published in China, English content translated from top Chinese academic journals and over 2400 conference proceedings.

Journal Translation Project features the bilingual full-text content of 140 top academic journals in China with the English and Chinese versions displayed side-by-side.

CNKI is provider of our two important Chinese resources at the moment: China Academic Journals and China Doctoral and Masters Dissertations Full-text Database, both of which are in the Library’s Databases A-Z list and Databases by Subject for East Asian Studies.

Princeton University Library Research Grants

The following information is relevant to several subject areas in the LLC School: East Asian Studies, Children’s literature, and Portuguese-speaking cultures.

Each year, the Friends of the Princeton University Library, as well as other library and campus funding sources, offer short-term Library Research Grants to promote scholarly use of the Library’s special collections. The award is $1,000 per week (up to four weeks) plus transportation costs. Applications to use unique, not regularly available, East Asian Library materials will be considered as part of these general grants. There is a window of several months to apply each year.

As of Sept. 23, 2019, the 2020-2021 Princeton University Library Research Grants application is open and ready to receive submissions. The deadline to apply is Noon on December 13, 2019. Grants are tenable from May 1, 2020 to April 30, 2021.

Applications will be considered for scholarly use of archives, manuscripts, rare books, and other rare and unique holdings of the Department of Special Collections, including the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library; as well as rare books in Marquand Library of Art and Archaeology, and in the East Asian Library (Gest Collection).  Special grants are awarded in several areas: the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies supports a limited number of library fellowships in Hellenic Studies, the Elmer Adler Fund supports research in the graphic arts, and the Cotsen Children’s Library supports research in its collection on aspects of children’s literature. The Maxwell Fund supports research on materials dealing with Portuguese-speaking cultures. The Sid Lapidus ’59 Research Fund for Studies of the Age of Revolution and the Enlightenment in the Atlantic World supports relevant special collections research.

For more information, or to apply, please go to http://rbsc.princeton.edu/friends-princeton-university-library-research-grants

Taiwan Resource Centre for Chinese Studies

On 22 November 2018, Director of L&UC Jeremy Upton and Director-general Tseng Shu-hsien of the National Central Library of Taiwan (NCL) signed an agreement on establishing the Taiwan Resource Centre for Chinese Studies (TRCCS) in our Library. Over 25 academic colleagues from several Schools of CAHSS and several PhD students attended the ceremony.

Photo courtesy of Susan Pettigrew

Both Jeremy and Director-general Tseng delivered warm speeches in a very friendly, collaborative atmosphere. In his remarks, Jeremy highlighted the University’s long term connection with China, our Library commitment to supporting teaching, learning and research in Chinese Studies and China related topics across the University. The University’s Assistant Principal (China) Professor Natascha Gentz spoke in warm support of the project on behalf of the University. Director General Mr Jason Chien-Chen Lien of Taipei Representative Office in the U.K., Edinburgh Office, also attended the launch ceremony and made a speech. After the official signing of the agreement, the guests were shown by Dr Joseph Marshall a display of Special Collections items on China.

The worldwide TRCCS project was first launched in 2012 by the NCL of Taiwan to promote international exchange and library collaboration in Chinese studies. We are the 31st TRCCS partner institution in the world, the 3rd in the UK after SOAS and Oxford, and the 1st in Scotland.

Our TRCCS is located within the East Asian Studies Collection on the 3rd floor of the Main Library. Thanks to the hard work of colleagues in the Metadata Services and the Collections Management teams, the initial NCL donation of 748 titles of Chinese books and DVDs (948 items) on a wide range of subjects in arts, humanities and social science, recently published in Taiwan, have already been catalogued and made available for staff and students. There will be further donations of several hundred books each year from the second year onwards. In addition, the NCL will offer us access to about 8 digital resources from Taiwan. Under the project, the NCL and the University Library (together with the department of Asian Studies) will also co-host annual “Taiwan Lecturers on Chinese Studies”, delivered by internationally well-known scholars in the field.

TRCCS in East Asian Studies Collection, 3rd floor, Main Library. The entire TRCCS collection can be retrieved in DiscoverEd by shelfmark search for “TRCCS”.

We believe that the TRCCS project will enable us to fill in a gap in our Chinese print and e-resource collections by systematically acquiring scholarly publications produced in Taiwan.  It will play an active role in our efforts to build our Chinese Collection into a national resource centre for Chinese Studies in Scotland.

 

 

Trial access to Chinese newspapers of modern China

Shanghai Library has provided us with a trial access to the digital archives of 6 modern Chinese newspapers, until 16 Feb 2019. The trial can be accessed on the same database platform as the Late Qing Dynasty Periodical Full-text Database 1833-1911 and Chinese Periodical Full-text Database 1911-1949, both of which are in the Library’s Databases A-Z list and Databases and the Databases by Subject for East Asian Studies list, or simply go directly to http://www.cnbksy.com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/search/advance (EASE login is required).

The six Chinese newspaper archives are:

《小报》The Tabloids (1897~1949)

《新闻报》Sin Wan Pao (1893~1949)

《时报》The Eastern Times (1904~1939)

《大公报》(1902~1949/1952)Ta Kung Pao(1902~1949/1952)

《大陆报》The China Press (1911~1949)

《字林洋行中英文报纸全文数据库》The North-China Daily News & Herald Newspapers and Hong Lists (1850~1951)

Shanghai Library is digitising other Chinese and English newspapers of modern China. We will arrange a free trial when they are ready in 2019.

LLC related database trials

There are several database trials running at the moment for the next few weeks which are relevant for the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, in particular for English Literature, Asian Studies, and Film Studies. All these trials can be accessed via the Library’s E-Resources Trials website. These resources are: Continue reading