Subject guides: Chinese Studies: Databases

Bibliography, encyclopedia, dictionary

Bibliography of Asian studies (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Citation database of western-language monographs, articles and book chapters pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia (especially humanities and social sciences) published worldwide since 1971 to the present. Through 1991, BAS included citations to periodical articles, individually authored monographs, chapters in edited volumes, conference proceedings, anthologies, and Festschriften. Since 1992, newly published individually authored monographs are not added to the database.
Encyclopedia of modern Asia This link opens in a new window
This online version of the 6 volume print encyclopedia provide 1000's of articles on Modern Asia from a global perspective. Historical articles emphasize people, places, events and developments that have had a lasting influence on Asia. Articles also cover Asian relations with Western nations, the relations between nations within Asia and also the flow of people, goods and ideas within Asia and globally.

Secondary source databases

Duxiu database This link opens in a new window
Duxiu is a comprehensive Chinese studies database, providing a full-text search interface to more than three million Chinese bibliographic entities in all subjects dating from the early 1930s to the present. It contains over 600 million pages of text, including about two million books, as well as journal articles, conference papers, video clips etc. [Monash University Library's subscription is to the ebooks only]. 读秀"是由海量全文数据及资料基本信息组成的超大型数据库，为用户提供深入到图书章节和内容的全文检索，部分文献的原文试读，以及高效查找、获取各种类型学术文献资料的一站式检索，周到的参考咨询服务，是一个真正意义上的学术搜索引擎及文献资料服务平台。
CNKI: China National Knowledge Infrastructure (Zhongguo qi kan quan wen shu ju ku) This link opens in a new window
This full-text database is a comprehensive full-text databases of Chinese academic journals. It contains more than 9,000 journals starting from 1915. The library has access to journal articles from all of the ten subject areas.
Access to this database outside of China is limited. Monash staff and students may not see the full search results.
China economy, public policy, and security database This link opens in a new window
EPS China data (Chinese version) This link opens in a new window
EPS China Data provides series statistical and census data from the Peoples Republic of China. The database includes 39 subdatabases produced by regional and national organisations covering various subject areas and all regions of China. It is a one-stop service, offering data retrieval, processing, analysis, forecasting, visualization display, export, and SAS and SPSS. EPS China Data has both English and Chinese versions, and contains over 1.2 million basic and combined statistical indicators in time series.

Hong Kong Journals Online
Hong Kong Journals Online (HKJO) is a full-text image database providing access to selected academic and professional journals, both in English and Chinese, published in Hong Kong. Titles included in this database cover a wide range of disciplines including law, medicine and education. The University of Hong Kong Libraries, with a rich collection of Hong Kong journals, developed this database with the objectives of facilitating efficient information retrieval and preserving archival materials. Issues included in this database vary from journal to journal with the earliest going back to 1872. Currently, more than 491,290 images from over 60 titles will be accessible on the database.
National Taiwan university Journal Database
「臺大學術期刊資料庫」收錄臺大各學術研究單位出版之中外學術期刊論文篇目與全文，審查過程嚴謹、內容豐富詳實、撰寫格式一致，具相當程度之學術水準，為查詢臺灣一流學府之學術研究發展、輔助教學研究之最佳資料庫。
National Central Library of Taiwan Electronic Databases
Electronic databases subscribed by National Central Library of Taiwan. Registry required.

Other core Arts and Humanities secondary source databases

JSTOR This link opens in a new window JSTOR is a comprehensive library of important scholarly literature, built by over 1,700 worldwide participants, including major Australian universities. It includes thousands of academic journals, books, and primary sources from a wide range of academic publishers and university presses. Titles span across disciplines, including core areas such as business & economics, social sciences, education, history, language & literature and science. Current journals are linked and cross-searchable with archival journals and ebooks.
ProQuest This link opens in a new window The Proquest platform is a leading multidisciplinary portal allowing cross-search access to many key online databases, both full text and bibliographic. Databases cover academic and professional disciplines such as business, law, education, computing, science, technology, engineering, arts, and medicine, and consist of scholarly journals, books, video & audio, dissertations & theses, newspapers and more. Search multiple databases simultaneously or select from amongst individual database titles. A complete list of database titles available to Monash University students and staff is available at the site.
Taylor & Francis online This link opens in a new window Portal to Taylor & Francis Group content, which provides access to thousands of e-books and journals in science, technology, engineering, medicine, humanities and social science from well known publishers such as Routledge, CRC Press, Chapman and Hall, Ashgate, Psychology Press, Longman and Heinemann. Searches can be filtered to Library subscribed content only. The site also hosts a growing collection of Open Access content.
Cambridge journals online This link opens in a new window Cambridge Journals Online offers access to a multidisciplinary collection of nearly 400 leading journals, including over 200 published on behalf of learned and professional societies. Cambridge Journals Online covers a broad range of subjects across the humanities, social sciences and sciences.

Primary source databases

Modern newspaper in China, 1840-1949. Series 3 & 4 The Modern Newspaper in China database includes hundreds of historical newspapers that were published between 1840 and 1949, at both national and local levels. The newspapers are full-text searchable, and support article or compete page downloads, including different local editions, such as Sao Dang Bao, Guilin and Kunming editions.

Minguo shi qi qi kan quan wen shu ju ku (1911-1949) This link opens in a new window This database (1911-1949) is produced by Shanghai Library and contains its digitized collection of Chinese periodicals published in the Republican period between 1911 and 1949. The contents represent all disciplines and subjects at the time. It is an important historical archive for the period.
Gale primary sources This link opens in a new window A full-text database, formerly Artemis Primary Sources, that cross-searches Gale's extensive digital archive collections, including Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO), The Making of the Modern World : the Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature, The Making of Modern Law : Legal Treatises, 1800-1926, and The Making of Modern Law : Foreign, Comparative and International Law, 1600-1926. The platform features Subject Indexing to aid content discovery across collections, Term Frequency which can suggest the importance of particular concepts during given periods, and Term Clusters which displays terms that commonly occur in relation to a search term.
Archives unbound This link opens in a new window Archives Unbound presents topically-focused digital collections of historical documents that support the research and study needs of scholars, researchers, and students at the college and university level. A multi-disciplinary resource, collections cover a broad range of topics. Use this gateway to explore the Library's subscribed content.
China and the modern world This link opens in a new window This database is a series of digital archive collections sourced from preeminent libraries and archives. The series covers a period of about 180 years (1800s to 1980s) when China experienced radical and often traumatic transformations from an inward-looking imperial dynasty into a globally engaged republic. Consisting of monographs, manuscripts, periodicals, correspondence and letters, historical photos, ephemera, and other kinds of historical documents, these collections provide comprehensive primary source materials for understanding the various aspects of China during the 19th and 20th centuries. Monash University Library subscriptions are to Part 1 to Part 6. [Part 1: Missionary, sinology and literary periodicals. -- Part 2: Records of the Maritime Customs Service of China 1854–1949. -- Part 3. Diplomacy and political secrets, 1869-1900. -- Part 4. Hong Kong, Britain and China, 1841-1951.-- Part 5. Imperial China & the West: Part I, 1815-1881. -- Part 6. Imperial China and the West. Part II, 1865-1905.]
China : trade, politics & culture, 1793-1980 : sources from the School of Oriental and African Studies and the British Library, London. This link opens in a new window This collection contains a wide range of materials documenting western interaction with China from the first embassy by Lord Macartney to the birth of the People's Republic and to trade negotiations for military aircraft in the 1970s. It has strong collections relating to missionaries and their experiences. There are maps, drawings and photographs, and personal accounts of life and work in China throughout the period.
China : culture and society : the Wason Pamphlet Collection, Cornell University, 1750-1929 1800-1929. This link opens in a new window Database contains digitized full text of the pamphlets held in the Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia. Mostly in English and published between c. 1750 and 1929, and amounting to around 1,200 items, these rare pamphlets form part of an extensive collection of literature on China and the Chinese in the Western world. Also features a host of secondary resources, including scholarly essays, an interactive chronology, mini guides, and editors’ choices from the collection.
China, America and the Pacific : trade & cultural exchange This link opens in a new window Database of material relating to the history of North American trade and cultural exchange with China and the Far East, focusing on the 18th and 19th centuries. Sourced from American and Canadian libraries, the resource documents this topic with manuscripts, rare printed sources, visual images, objects and maps.
Asia and the West : diplomacy and cultural exchange This link opens in a new window See: Nineteenth century collections online. Asia and the West
Foreign Office files for China, 1919-1980 This link opens in a new window This digital collection makes available all British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan between 1919 and 1980. Allows access to eye-witness accounts, weekly and monthly summaries, annual reviews, reports and anlyses, economic assessments, synopses on Chinese personalities, and much more. The six parts of this resource span the period 1919 to 1980: 1919-1929: Kuomintang, CCP and the Third International; 1920-1937: The Long March, civil war in China and the Manchurian Crisis; 1938-1948: Open Door, Japanese war and the seeds of Communist vistory; 1949-1956: The Communist revolution; 1957-1966: The Great Leap Forward; 1967-1980: The Cultural Revolution.
Minutes of the Shanghai Municipal Council This link opens in a new window This collection replicates all the minutes of meetings held by the Board of Directors of the Shanghai Municipal Council from July 1854 to December 1943. A wide range of topics were discussed at these board meetings from sanitation, transportation, telecommunication and postal service, to taxation, urban planning, gas supply and so forth. During the period covered by these minutes, Shanghai, as a treaty port, transformed from a traditional small coastal town into a trade centre of China and eventually an international metropolis that nurtured many of China’s and even the world’s modern industrial and commercial businesses.
Policing the Shanghai International Settlement, 1894-1945 This link opens in a new window These files represent a large portion of the archives of the British-run municipal police force based in Shanghai's former international settlement. The special branch of the Shanghai Municipal Police was charged with providing an orderly environment for Shanghai's foreign trade and commerce. Carrying out its duties required the timely gathering of information on areas of potential instability that might threaten Shanghai's economic development and political calm. This branch's prime responsibilities were collecting intelligence on political demonstrations, strikes, labor and social unrest, foreign and domestic subversive activities, and areas of dispute between the international settlement and the Chinese government.
Shanghai Municipal Council : The Municipal Gazette, 1908-1940 This link opens in a new window The Municipal Gazette provides a unique window into the workings of the Shanghai International Settlement (SMC) during the period of revolution, the Republic, internationalization of Shanghai, national uprising, and world war. The SMC was founded in July 1854 by a group of Western businessmen to govern the daily operation and infrastructure of the Shanghai International Settlement. By the mid-1880s, the Council had become a practical monopoly over the city’s businesses. The SMC was dissolved on December 17, 1943.
Political, economic, and military conditions in China : reports and correspondence of the U.S. Military Intelligence Division, 1918-1941 This link opens in a new window This Archives Unbound database reproduces the six principal MID [Military Intelligence Division] files relating exclusively to China for the period 1918 to 1941. The six files relating to China, 1918-1941, are: 1. General Conditions in China. 2. Political Conditions, China. 3. Economic Conditions, China. 4. Army, China. 5. Navy, China. 6. Aeronautics, China. Also includes documents created by other U.S. Government agencies and foreign governments from the records of the Military Intelligence Division.
Chinese Civil War and U.S.-China relations : records of the U.S. State Department's Office of Chinese Affairs, 1945-1955 This link opens in a new window The U.S. State Departments Office of Chinese Affairs, charged with operational control of American policy toward China, amassed information on virtually all aspects of life there immediately before, during, and after the revolution. Declassified by the State Department, the Records of the Office of Chinese Affairs, 1945-1955, provide valuable insight into numerous domestic issues in Communist and Nationalist China, U.S. containment policy as it was extended to Asia, and Sino-American relations during the post-war period.
Taiwan : political and economic reports, 1861-1960 This link opens in a new window This database includes the 10 volumes of the complete series of British diplomatic reports from the island of Taiwan. These volumes provide an extensive research source for study of a 100-year period of Taiwanese history. The early reports cover the 19th century years of Formosa as a part of China, as well as the brief period of independence in 1895; followed by the long period up to World War II as a Japanese colony. The post-war reports document the struggle between the Kuomintang and the Communist forces. The Nationalists, defeated on the mainland, claimed Taiwan. Contemporary accounts of the military tensions of the early 1950s, the rivalry over the Chinese heritage and the unresolved status of Taiwan follow.
Nixon years, 1969-1974 This link opens in a new window The Nixon Years, 1969-1974 covers Richard Nixon's entire presidential term and allows scholars and researchers the opportunity to assess, from a British, European and Commonwealth perspective, Nixon's handling of numerous Cold War crises, his administration's achievements, as well as his increasingly controversial activities and unorthodox use of executive powers culminating in Watergate and resignation.
Nineteenth century English-language journals from the Far East This link opens in a new window This collection provides researchers with six rare English-language journals, five of which were founded by Western missionaries in the Far East in the 19th century, covering a wide range of topics such as East-West communication, Christianity in China and other parts of Asia, and China's political, economic, and cultural landscape.
Digital National Security Archive : the documents that made U.S. policy (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window This archive presents a comprehensive collection of significant primary source documents, arranged in collections, that are central to U.S. foreign and military policy since 1945. It consists of indexed, declassified government documents covering U.S. policy toward critical world events – including their military, intelligence, diplomatic and human rights dimensions – from 1945 to the present. Each collection is assembled by foreign policy experts and features chronologies, glossaries, bibliographies, and scholarly overviews.
Evangelism in China : correspondence of the Board of Foreign Missions, 1837-1911 This link opens in a new window The establishment in 1837 of the Presbyterian Church's Board of Foreign Missions signalled the beginning of a worldwide missionary operation destined to embrace some fifteen countries in four different continents The records offered here provide information on social conditions in China and on efforts to spread the gospel during the nineteenth century. These are records mainly of incoming correspondence from the mission field and outgoing correspondence from the Board headquarters.

Free online databases

东京大学东洋文化研究所所藏汉籍善本影像资料库东京大学东洋文化研究所的藏书丰富，包括原「东方文化学院」藏书、大木文库、仓石文库等，总数量有十万本，且其中包含相当多的孤本、善本。
Chinese Text Project 中国哲学书电子化计划 A web-based e-text system to present ancient Chinese texts.
China Academic Digital Associative Library 大学数字图书馆国际合作计划 Initiated by The Ministry of Education, People's Republic of China, supported by academic libraries national wide, this database provide full text to some of the important rare books in China (includes 续修四库全书). Free registry required.
Visualising China 1850-1950: an interactive resource Visualising China is a project that allows users to explore and enhance more than 8,000 digitized photographs of China taken between 1850 and 1950.
Harvard Yen-ching Library Chinese Rare Book Digitization Project 哈佛燕京图书馆善本特藏 This is the digital collection of the Harvard Yenching Library's rare books. About 1,439 titles can be viewed online from the Harvard-Yenching library's OPAC.
中国国家图书馆宋人文集 The National Library of China selected 275 rare books from its holdings and made them freely available for viewing online. The titles were all written by Song Dynasty authors. Some editions were imprinted during the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Free registry required.
China Biographical Database 中國歷代人物傳記資料庫 This online relational database (now maintained by Harvard Yen-ching institute) has biographical information on approximately 360,000 individuals as of 2017, who are primarily from the 7th through the 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.
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Bookshelf The Digital Public Library of America is a virtual library, which brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, museums and makes them freely available to the world. 13,986 Chinese books are searchable from this portal. Full text available.
Ming-Qing Archives Name Authority File 明清檔案人名權威資料庫 This database was developed by the Academia Sinica of Taiwan. It contains about 15,000 historical names that appear in the Grand Secretariat and Grand Council archives. They are searchable by personal names and variants, place of birth and cross reference, etc.
Historical Photographs of China A collaboration between scholars at the University of Bristol, University of Lincoln, the Institut d'Asie Orientale and TGE-Adonis, this project aims to locate, archive, and disseminate photographs from the substantial holdings of images of modern China held mostly in private hands overseas. These are often of even greater historic interest than might ordinarily be the case, as the destruction of materials inside China in war and revolution in the twentieth century, and especially during the 1966-69 Cultural Revolution, means that there is a relative dearth today of accessible photographic records in China itself. Turmoil in China, and emigration from the country, also led to the development of a large Chinese diaspora. Moreover, thousands of foreigners lived and worked in China between the 1840s and the 1950s, and many thousands more visited for longer or shorter periods. Chinese emigrants, foreign expatriates and visitors alike took, bought or otherwise acquired photographs. Many of these are in libraries and collections in the West, and in addition our research in modern Chinese history has led us to many interesting private collections. Images from private and public collections are available here.
Chinese Pamphlet 连环画 Mass education materials published in Hong Kong and in Mainland China, particularly Shanghai, in the years 1947-1954. These cartoon books, pamphlets, postcards and magazines, on topics such as foreign threats to Chinese security, Chinese relations with the Soviet Union, industrial and agricultural production, and marriage reform, were produced by both Kuomintang (Nationalist) and Gongchantang (Communist) supporters.
ANU Library - Chinese Digital Archive 1966-1976 Provides rare and fragile collections in both print and microfilm relating to the Chinese Cultural Revolution period (1966 to 1976).

Library related sites

Asian Libraries in Melbourne (ALIM)
Asian Library Resources of Australia (ALRA)
Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL)