Asia Collections

• East Asia: China, Japan, Hong Kong,Korea, Macao, Mongolia, Taiwan, Tibet
• South Asia: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
• Southeast Asia: Brunei Darussalam, Burma [Myanmar], Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.

Asia is extremely diverse. Reference sources must cover a wide range. There are many original language resources; far fewer english-language resources. Central Asia is not comprehensively covered (Ali Houissa has some Central Asia selection responsibilities.)

Tips for finding Asian-language materials in the Library Catalog

• Search in romanized form -- no diacritics (records display with diacritics)
• Long View displays title, and sometimes additional bibliographic information, in the vernacular
• New records for Chinese-language material are cataloged using Pinyin romanziation system
• There may still be some records in Wade-Giles romanization system
• It may be helpful to check the online LC Pinyin/Wade-Giles Conversion Table
• In addition, there are some transliteration errors in catalog records

Keep in mind that different cultures may use different romanization systems. Users may be more familiar with an alternative system

Worldcat

NACSIS Webcat -- Recommended for searching in the vernacular. See the NACSIS Webcat about section for more information about what you can do in NACSIS.

Voyager

"Unicode" will be, or already has been, added to Voyager functionality. Unicode allows searching in the vernacular.

Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS) -- First stop for Asia materials in western languages.

• 1970 - present: includes articles and essays.*
• Prior to 1971: print version -- Author and Subject volumes, includes monographs

*Use RLIN and Worldcat for monographs.

• Works best for author searches and browsing by country. Early articles were categorized by the country of major focus but now they will also appear in category lists of smaller countries.

JSTOR (14 Asian studies titles)

MUSE (13 Asian studies titles)

Asia Reading Room (reference collection)

• 100 newspapers , original language
  • organized by country in alphabetical order
  • romanized version of newspaper name
  • individual selectors make decisions about backfiles.
• Travel Guides for S.East Asia (Selector asked to have these in the Reference stacks to make them non-circulating)
• CDROMS housed in locked drawers in the Asia Reading Room. Only the desk staff in Asia have the key.
• Microfilm/fiche shelved in Asia Reading Room.
• All other media have been sent to Media Services.
• 2 new "productivity" workstations
• Q-V Reference Books are also shelved on 8th floor of Olin. Asia staff may be selecting individual titles to transfer to Asia Reading Room.
• The earlier volumes of the Bibliography if Asian Studies is housed in the Asia Reading Room.

Reference Guide:

• English Language Reference Sources for Asia