This guide is an in-depth listing of Chinese Studies resources available to students and faculty at the University of Minnesota.
On this page
Online Catalogs & Guides
Online Guides
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Archive it - Greater China Archival Resources 檔案指南The Greater China Archival Resources Web Archive collects websites belonging to established, physical archives and learned archival societies located in the Greater China region, and archival projects from or about the Greater China region. Under the Chinese government, local archives administratively operate under the guidance of the local archival bureaus which themselves are part of local government and responsible for archival management for entire geographical areas. Curated by librarians within the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation, the Archive aims to provide stable reference to the born-digital content originating from Chinese archives for future access, and attempts to capture the changes of these websites over time, thus documenting political change in China.
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China Studies Digital Mapping ProjectThe China Studies Digital Archives Mapping Project is an ongoing initiative that aims to expand access to primary materials and source collections that are vital to the advancement of the China Studies field.
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Open Databases for China Studies Resource GuideThis guide provides an overview of open databases and free resources with primary materials for China studies research. The guide was edited by Joshua Seufert (Princeton University Libraries) and Luo Zhou (Duke University Libraries) for the Luce/ACLS Digital Archives Mapping Project. This guide will be updated periodically.
Online Catalogs
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Academia Sinica Libraries 中央研究院圖書館Online catalog of the libraries of the Academia Sinica, Taipei.
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CADAL 大学数字图书馆国际合作计划In Dec.2000, Computer scientists from China and US jointly initiated the construction of Million Book Digital Library Project (MBP), which later on was developed into the Universal Digital Library (UDL). In August 2009, it was renamed as the China Academic Digital Associative Library (CADAL).
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CALIS 學苑汲古: 高校古文献資源庫读者检索系统This is an online database that can be used for searching the Chinese ancient books held by the Universities in China.
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Chinese Ancient Books Union Catalogue and Evidence-based Platform 中文古籍联合目录及循证平台This is an online cataloging system operated by Shanghai Library. It includes the Chinese ancient books catalogs from more than 1400 institutions across the world.
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Chinese Genealogy Knowledge Service Platform 上海图书馆家谱知识服务平台You can search for the Chinese genealogy archives on this platform.
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Digital Collections for Chinese StudiesThe open-access tool helps researchers locate digital collections for Chinese studies and easily navigate resources such as archival materials, oral history, rare books, images and datasets. You can click the Advanced Search and Browse Function above to search collections by institution name, subject area, language, keyword, format and etc.
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Synergy of Metadata Resources in Taiwan (SMRT) 臺灣書目整合查詢系統A comprehensive online catalog system used for searching titles and names among the National Library collections.
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WorldCatFind books, journals, articles, maps, music scores, sound recordings, films, theses/dissertations, machine-readable data files, and any other materials available in libraries worldwide. All subject areas are covered. Request items through Interlibrary Loan using the ILLiad link on each item's record. A mobile version of this database is available.
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全國漢籍データベース 日本所藏中文古籍數據庫This is an online database that can be used for searching the Chinese ancient books held in Japan.
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東京大學東洋文化研究所漢籍目錄This is an online catalog that can be used for searching the Chinese ancient books held by the Institute of Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo, Japan.
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東京大學總合圖書館漢籍目錄This is the catalog of the Chinese book collections held by the University of Tokyo Libraries.
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香港大學馮平山圖書館藏善本書錄This is the catalog of the rare Chinese books collection held by the University of Hong Kong based on the book "香港大學馮平山圖書館藏善本書錄" published in 2003.
Digital Collections
Digitized Collections
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China: Trade, Politics & CultureWith documents encompassing events from the earliest English embassy to the birth and early years of the Peoples Republic, this resource collects sources from nine archives to give an incredible insight into the changes in China during this period.
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Grand Secretariat ArchivesGrand Secretariat Archives (內閣大庫檔案) is a database that contains documents originally housed in the storerooms of the Grand Secretariat of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). After 1949 these documents were kept at the Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica. The entire archive contains about 310,000 items. The collection, dating from the Ming dynasty to the Qing dynasty (1368-1912), encompasses a wide variety of subjects. For full content coverage, see "Grand Secretariat Archives - Inventory and History of Preservation". Also, portions of the archives had been published under title: Ming Qing dang an.
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Ailing Zhang (Eileen Chang) Papers, 1919-1994The Ailing Zhang papers is a special collection hold at the USC library. It consist of six boxes of correspondence, manuscripts, newspaper clippings and journal articles, photographs, and essays, articles, and speeches (written by Zhang Ailing). 138 letters, 45 photos, 5 articles and 2 manuscripts are digitized and can be accessed online.
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Asian Digital LibraryThe Asian Digital Library (BNA) covers different formats of historical documents including books, archive, periodicals, videos, and audios. It is based largely on the resources available both in the personal libraries of scholars, on public institutional sites, individual sites, document and archival funds or even on commercial sites.
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China Resources at the Yale Divinity School LibraryThe Divinity Library holds extensive manuscript and archival material related to missionary work and the Christian church in China. Records of nearly 400 former China missionaries and many organizations are represented, primarily from the years 1832 to 1950. T
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China Unofficial ArchivesThis site is dedicated to making accessible the key documents, films, blogs, and publications of a movement of Chinese people seeking to reclaim their country's history. Unlike official government or university archives, the China Unofficial Archives is open, free, and accessible to anyone from any walk of life. The site is fully bilingual in Chinese and English, the international language of scholarship.
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CUHK Digitised CollectionsThe digital collection from Chinese University of Hong Kong Library (CUHK Library).
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Digital Repository at Hong Kong University LibraryDigitalRepository@HKUL is a gateway for the discovery of digitized materials from HKUL and individuals/organizations that have participated in partner projects with the Libraries. Digitized collections consist of photographs, manuscripts, posters, audio-visual recordings as well as other archival material from the Libraries’ rare and special collections
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Harvard-Yenching Library Digital CollectionsIncludes all 4,200 titles (53,000 stitch-bound volumes) of the Harvard-Yenching Library's Chinese Rare Book Collection, among other collections.
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Historical Document Crowd Sourcing Platform 上海图书馆历史文献众包台Created by Shanghai Library. Includes some digitized archives.
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Hong Kong Government Reports Online (HKGRO)Hong Kong Government Reports Online (HKGRO) is a full-text image database providing online access to pre-World War II issues of four major government publications, namely, Administrative Report, Hong Kong Sessional Papers, Hong Kong Hansard and Hong Kong Government Gazette.
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Hoover Institute's Online CollectionsThe Hoover Institute has digitized some of its archival collections, including on modern China. These collections can be browsed on the website by region and language.
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The Maoist (Socialist) Era in China: Publications and Documents which are Now Difficult to FindA very wide range of digitized material from post-1949 China can be found on or through the lists on Bannedthought.net, which also has pre-1949 and contemporary material.
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National Central Library Gazette Online 政府公報資訊網The Government Gazette as a collection of major national decrees & regulations. Its purpose is to archive original military & political measures, acts & proclamations, personnel assignments & removals, minutes of meetings, etc. that are of value to researchers of modern history. National Central Library Gazette Online (NCLGO) contains over 80 gazettes published since 1912, of which 18 gazettes from ministries and commissions under the Executive Yuan have been integrated into Executive Yuan Gazette since January 2005. To date, over 6.4 million pages of scanned image and over 1.3 million metadata records had been provided on NCLGO.
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Old China Coast ShipsThis site presents over 2300 A4 pages of illustrated fleet lists in PDF form. The fleet lists are divided into nine categories described below. The 'Chinese' categories may include ships which had Chinese-based ownership but were registered under non-Chinese flags including that of British-administered Hong Kong. Click on the green menu bar located at the top and bottom of any main page to access the main category pages from which the PDF files can be accessed.
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Records of YMCA International Work in ChinaA UMN archive of records YMCA International Work in China, housed at Elmer L. Andersen Library.
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Taiwan National Central Library Rare Books & Special Collections 古籍與特藏文獻資源Some of the rare books can be viewed online.
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Unofficial Poetry Journals from ChinaUnofficial or “underground” poetry publications—especially journals, but also one-off multiple-author anthologies and individual collections—play an important role in contemporary Chinese culture. They are comparable to Soviet-Russian samizdat publications, and to the “little magazines” often associated with early modernism in the West.
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Virtual ShanghaiVirtual Shanghai began in 2000 as a collaborative project between the Institut d’Asie Orientale (CNRS-University of Lyon) and the Center for Chinese Studies of UC Berkeley. It contains a maps collection and an image and media collection focusing on Shanghai historical photographs.
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The Wenjin Pavilion Edition Siku Quanshu 文津閣本四庫全書( IE/Chrome access only)Compiled during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, "Si Ku Quan Shu" is the largest official series in pre-modern China and has an important historical position in the history of Chinese cultural education and academic thought.
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Wilson Center Digital ArchiveThis digital archive contains several historical documents related to Asia. Examples are: “LOCAL NATIONALISM" IN XINJIANG, 1957-1958," "1988 SEOUL OLYMPIC GAMES," "CHINA AND AFRICA," and "JAPANESE NUCLEAR HISTORY."
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Yale University Divinity Library Special CollectionsSpecial Collections at the Yale Divinity School Library include more than 6000 linear feet of archival material, archivally-treated pamphlet collections, and microform holdings.
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中国清代民国公私文書コレクションThis database was developed by The Kyoto University Library. It contains 295 digitized documents from the Qing and the Republican periods, most of them are personal trade documents and official files.
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抗日战争与近代中日关系文献数据平台A platform covers resources on the Anti-Japanese War and modern China-Japan relations. It includes books, archives, periodicals, newspapers, audios, videos, etc.
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東京大學東洋文化研究所所藏漢籍善本全文影像資料庫This database is based on the Chinese book collections at Institute of Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo, one of the best Chinese book collections in the world. It has 4019 titles available to the public.
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東京大學東洋文化研究所所藏雙紅堂文庫全文影像資料庫This database is based on the Chinese book collection of Kikuya Nagasawa (長澤規矩也). It contains 500 titles on Chinese opera (xiqu 戲曲) and literature in the Ming and Qing dynasty in China.
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漢喃古籍文獻典藏數位化計畫A digital collection of Ancient Chinese books from the National Library of Vietnam.
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中國寫本文獻數字資源庫Digitized Dunhuang manuscripts and other local manuscripts such as contracts.
Databases
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The Research center for Digital Humanities, National Taiwan University 臺灣大學數位人文研究中心The center has already established 33 databases which comprise over 4,000,000 digital annotations (metadata), 30,000,000 images and 400 million words of original texts including Chinese documents from the Ming and Qing dynasties as well as old deeds of Taiwan. Also included are statistical reports and court archives from the period of Japanese occupation, archives of the Kuomintang (KMT) party, archives of the Taiwan Consultative Council and other institutes, newspaper clippings and old photographs.
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Tokyo Trial Database 东京审判资源库A Chinese database of archives of the Tokyo Trial.
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The Wenyuan Pavilion Edition Siku Quanshu文淵閣四庫全書A free online version of Siku Quanshu offered by Project Gutenberg.
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京都大學人文科學研究所 全國漢籍データベース 四庫提要This website provides free access to the full text of Siku Quanshu Zongmu Tiyao, the annotated catalog of Siku Quanshu. It is operated by the Center for Informatics in East Asian Studies, Institute for Research in Humanities at Kyoto University, Japan.
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汉典重光It's a collaborative project among Alibaba and a few universities to digitize the oversea ancient Chinese books.
Other Ebooks
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China MaxxA Chinese e-book database covering a variety of subject areas. The majority of the books were published after 1949. Full-text access is limited to purchased titles only. Purchased individual titles can also be found in the Libraries catalog. Texts can be viewed online but not downloaded. Limited printing capability. Search books by entering keywords in Chinese characters or by browsing the subject categories.
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CNKI eBooksFull-text Chinese e-books covering a variety of subject areas. It has more than 15,000 titles. Newly published titles are added regularly. Full-text access is limited to purchased titles only. The first 20 pages of unpurchased books are free to read. Individual purchased titles can also be found in library catalog. Books can be downloaded in pdf format. Search books by entering keywords in Chinese characters or by browsing the subject categories.
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EBSCO eBook CollectionSelected e-book titles from publishers. Some titles may be restricted to 1 or 3 simultaneous users.
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JSTORFind full text articles in academic journals or books on the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences. JSTOR provides articles from the journal's first issue. In some cases the most recent 2-5 years may not be available. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
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ProQuest Ebook CentralAn ebook platform that hosts a wide variety of titles. Limited to 1, 3, or unlimited simultaneous users depending on title.
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cantonese.com.hkThis is a website trying to preserve Cantonese language and culture. You can read "Little Prince" & "Animal Farm" translated into colloquial Cantonese with Jyutping (粤语拼音).
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Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)A searchable online catalog with millions of digitized items to browse, including photos, maps and books, from libraries, archives, museums, and cultural institutions around the United States.
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OER CommonsCatalog of tens of thousands of OERs to freely use, share, and adapt for the classroom.
Over 42,000 vetted and fully-indexed OER, ensuring a high level of resource relevancy and discovery.
Provides a single point of access to over 500 major content partners.
OERs are evaluated using the Common Core State Standards rubric (CCSS) –www.corestandards.org
Resources can be uploaded to OER Commons or created using their web based "Open Author" tool -
Studies on Ethnic Groups in China (University of Washington Press series)Includes twenty English-language scholarly books presenting research from a wide variety of disciplines on ethnic groups and ethnic relations in China. Works are both historical and contemporary and cover topics ranging from identity, local relations, folk literature, and religion to medicine, governance, education, and economic development.
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Taiwan eBook Database 臺灣華文電子書庫This database includes the library holdings published from 1911-1949 from various institutions, as well as authorized works by renowned Taiwan scholars in humanities and the social sciences and government publications. Subject content includes general, religion and philosophy, science and engineering, agriculture and fishing, medicine and home management, economics and finance, education, society, politics and law and military affairs, history and geography, language and literature, and art.
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University of Minnesota Libraries Pressbook Dream of the Red Chamber: AfterlivesThis is an open access textbook written by Ann Waltner, Professor of Department of History, University of Minnesota.
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中共中央党史和文献研究院：党和国家重要文献Include the important works of the Communist Party and the People's Republic of China.
Last Updated: Jun 16, 2025 6:57 PM
URL: https://libguides.umn.edu/china_advanced