Primary Sources
- AM-Explorer This link opens in a new windowAccess 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 windowA 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).
- 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
- Kanseki Repository 漢籍リポジトリComprehensive collection of premodern Chinese texts
- 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).
Buddhist Texts online 佛教大藏經
CBETA Chinese Tripitaka – 大藏經
Japanese Taisho Tripitaka – 大正新脩大藏經
Master Shengyan Dharma Drum – 聖嚴法師法鼓全集
Digital Collections - Oberlin College Libraries
Mary A. Ainsworth, an Oberlin alumna of 1889, bequeathed her Japanese Artist Book collection to Oberlin College in 1950. The works are mostly from late Edo (1603-1867) to 1912.
- Shansi: Oberlin and Asia 山西：歐柏林與亞洲
Digital collection related to the activity of Oberlinians in Asia from the 1880s & the 1950s
This growing collection consists of selected images of architecture, sculpture, paintings, and other media from various art historical periods. These images are selected on the basis of the curricular needs of the Oberlin College Department of Art.
Oberlin College educational use only - Redistribution off campus prohibited.
Images and Maps
- 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.
- Largest Collection of Tsukioka Kōgyo’s Woodblock PrintsThe University of Pittsburgh Library System, which holds the largest collection of artist Tsukioka Kōgyo’s (1869-1927) color woodblock prints outside of Japan, has digitized four complete sets that depict Noh theatre. This online collection comprises the largest digital representation of Kōgyo’s work freely available online. The set contains: Nōgaku zue 能樂圖繪 (Pictures of Noh), Nōgaku hyakuban 能楽百番 (Prints of One Hundred Noh Plays), Nōga taikan 能画大鑑 (A Great Collection of Prints of Noh Plays), and Kyōgen gojūban 狂言五十番 (Fifty Kyōgen Plays) and is available via the Kōgyo: The Art of Noh website at: http://exhibit.library.pitt.edu/kogyo/
The Artist
As the preeminent graphic artist of the Noh and kyōgen theatres, Tsukioka Kōgyo created hundreds of Japanese woodblock prints, paintings, magazine illustrations, and postcard pictures of Noh and kyōgen plays. Kōgyo also produced paintings and prints of flowers, birds, and even wartime scenes, but he is best known and remembered for his theatre paintings and prints. All the prints were published in Tokyo between 1897 and 1930.
Noh Theatre
Noh theatre, a well-known and long-established art form that originated in 14th century Japan, is a combination of dance and drama that plays on themes of the supernatural and the natural world.
The Collection
The online collection contains 632 digitized prints from the four sets, along with over 200 Japanese synopses of Noh plays with English summaries provided by P.G. O’Neill in his A Guide to Nō (Hinoki Shoten, 1964). - China GIS Data - Harvard UniversityHistorical, modern and area maps in China
- China Online MuseumOver 100 Chinese painters from the 4th century to modern.
- 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.
- Chinese Women's Magazines in the Late Qing and Early Republican Period晚清民國婦女雜誌庫
The focus is on four seminal women’s or gendered journals – a key genre of the new media-published between 1904-1937. They include Women’s World 女子世界 (1904-1907), The Women’s Eastern Times 婦女時報 (1911-1917), The Ladies’ Journal婦女雜誌 (1915-1931) and Elegance玲瓏 (1931-1937).
Major Streaming Video Plaftorms
- Academic Video Online This link opens in a new windowStreaming documentaries, films, and demonstrations on topics including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more.
- Docuseek This link opens in a new windowEducational documentaries and fiction feature films curated to help students examine the issues related to social, ecological, political and environmental justice around the world.
Note: Length of licenses varies based on sub-collection. Faculty should contact their library liaison, to confirm that films they wish to assign will be available through the full semester. - Feature Films for Education This link opens in a new windowHundreds of streaming full-length feature films for educational instructional purposes. This collection focuses on both current and hard-to-find titles, including documentaries, literary adaptations, blockbusters, classics, environmental titles, foreign films, social issues, animation studies, Academy Award winners, and more.
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowA streaming video collection that provides unlimited access to 300,000 video clips in numerous subject areas. Includes captioning with interactive and searchable transcripts on all titles, as well as instructions for embedding videos in learning management systems.
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowOnline videos include documentaries and feature films. Most films require a librarian to approve purchase before viewing. Further details on recent changes to Kanopy and a list of currently licensed Kanopy films are available on the Kanopy research guide.
- World Cinema Video Collection This link opens in a new windowStreaming feature films from Africa, America, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, including films from the silent era, from the mid-20th century, as well as award-winning contemporary works.
Special Collection & East Asian Collection
Chinese Rare books Collection (coming soon)
If you are interested to learn more about printing and special collection,
please visit: Special Collection
Our Special Collection Librarian also teaches every winter term (Jan) for Letter Press Printing
- Mary Ainsworth Collection of Japanese Illustration BooksThe Mary Ainsworth Collection consists of 114 lots amounting to over three hundred volumes of Japanese Artists' books.
- Buddhist Texts Finding GuideThis guide provides a preliminary report on some religious texts, mainly Buddhist, in the East Asian Collections.
- Rare Books of National Library of KoreaFull-text Rare Books from the collection of National Library of Korea
* A Rare Book Viewer installation needed, please follow the instruction on the website