Primary Sources
- AM-Explorer This link opens in a new window
Access millions of pages of primary source collections spanning content from the 15th-21st centuries.
- Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports (1941-1996) This link opens in a new windowTranscripts of foreign broadcasts and news translated into English; features stories selected by U.S. intelligence agencies for the use of policymakers.
- Digital Dictionary of Buddhism This link opens in a new window
A compilation of Buddhist terminologies, temples, schools, persons etc that are found in East Asian Buddhist canonical sources. Since much of what East Asian Buddhists have written about is the Buddhism of India, Central Asia, and Tibet, the content of this database/translation glossary is pan-Buddhist in character. Dictionaries and other reference sources are in many different Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan).
- Scripta Sinica This link opens in a new windowThe project for the Scripta Sinica database began in 1984. The first aim of this project was to digitize all documents essential to research in traditional Sinology. Secondly, a full-text database was established for academic research. Until present, Scripta Sinica is the largest Chinese full text database to encompass an enormous breadth of historical materials of this scale. More than 580 titles, new titles, and 423,000,000 characters of materials pertaining to the traditional Chinese classics have been included in the database and have been categorized with meticulous care. The Scripta Sinica database contains almost all of the important Chinese classics, especially those related to Chinese history.
- Digital Silk Road 數字絲路庫Digital Archives of Cultural Heritage – by National Institute of Informatics, Japan
The site includes Digital archive of Toyo Bunko Rare books, Silk Road Maps, Stein Place name Database, Old Beijing Maps, Database of Ruins in Silk Road - Digital Archive of Chinese Buddhist Temple Gazetteers 中國佛教寺廟志數位典藏237 gazetteers related to Chinese Buddhist history
- China Biographical Database Project (CBDB) - Harvard UniversityThe China Biographical Database is a freely accessible relational database with biographical information about approximately 422,600 individuals as of September 2018, primarily from the 7th through 19th centuries. With both online and offline versions, the data is meant to be useful for statistical, social network, and spatial analysis as well as serving as a kind of biographical reference. The image below shows the spatial distribution of a cross dynastic subset of 190,000 people in CBDB by basic affiliations (籍貫).
Images and GIS
- Cultural Japan This link opens in a new windowCollects information on Japanese electronic digital sources highlighting the culture of Japan from museums and libraries around the world.
- China GIS Data - Harvard UniversityHistorical, modern and area maps in China
- China Historical GISCHGIS provides a base GIS platform for researchers to use in spatial analysis or to visualize the historical divisions of China as digital maps.
- Japan Disasters ArchiveA project of Harvard University’s Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, the Japan Disasters Digital Archive (JDA) is an evolving, collaborative space for citizens, researchers, students, and policy makers, and a site of shared memory for those most directly affected by these events. The digital archive is an advanced search engine for archived materials from all over the web, individuals’ testimonials, tweets, prominently including content from international partners who are building digital repositories about the disasters.
- Digital Humanities Project on 3.11 Great East Japan EarthquakeDigital Humanities Project by Steven Geofrey Brown using Japanese morphological analysis and visualization.
- Meiji Japan: The Edward Morse Collection from Peabody Essex Museum
Edward Sylvester Morse (1838-1925) was one of the first Americans to live in Japan (1858-1925); his archive forms the basis of this website. Use for primary source materials -- diaries, drawings, correspondence, artifacts -- on everyday life as Japan went through several transitions.
