CATEGORY
Classical Texts
ACCESS
subscription
URL
http://www.nlc.cn/
DESCRIPTION
The National Library of China (NLC) has opened 31 databases on its 中国古籍保护网 to the public. Additionally several databases on Republican materials and materials on national minorities have been added recently. Included are the following database covering only the collection of NLC (if not otherwise noted): 数字古籍 Digital Rare books 数字方志 Digital Gazetteers (Some of the items are offered with side-by side reading of the transcribed text. The text however is not full text searchable. Most of the gazetteers included here are already available at Princeton in a full-text searchable database China Comprehensive Gazetteers ). 中华寻根网 China genealogical database (The database offers a sophisticated search system. It includes bibliographic information on almost 30,000 家谱, and gives reading access to more than 2,000 (probably mostly from the collections of Shanghai Library). It also provides an overview of family lineages for each family name and has biographical entries for 14,000 individuals. Over 6,000 gazetteers are also linked into this system which makes it quite a powerful tool for genealogical research). 赵城金藏 Zhaocheng Jin Tripitaka (This Buddhist canon was printed between about the ninth year of the Huangtong era of Xizong of the Jin dynasty and is therefore referred to as Jin Tripitaka. The Jin Tripitaka was based on the tenth-century Kaibao Tripitaka. It has great documentary value because many of the sutras in this edition of the canon are missing from other editions. The database only gives access to the scans. Princeton has access to a full-text searchable version of both the Qisha Song Tripitaka and the Zhaocheng Jin Tripitaka via the Fojiao Jingdian ku ). 年画撷英 Chinese New Year prints 碑帖精华 Rubbings database (Particularly strong for the Tang and the Qing. Where available the date of the making of the rubbing is included in the database. The database allows full-text searching of the transcribed text!) 宋人文集 Collected works of the Song (focuses on first editions). 甲骨世界 Oracle Bones (Two sub-databases containing images of original oracle bones and rubbings of oracle bones). 西夏文献 Tangut texts (Mostly of Buddhist nature. The texts are cataloged by Chinese titles). 西夏论著 Tangut Studies Bibliography 前尘旧影 Historic photographs 年画撷英 New year prints 名家手稿 Manuscripts of famous authors currently featuring notebooks by 阮章竞 Ruan Zhangjing (1914-2000) 徽州善本家谱 Collection of Huizhou Jiapu 中华医药典籍资源库 Classical works of Chinese Medicine 法藏敦煌遗书 Dunhuang collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) 云南图书馆古籍 Yunnan Library Rare Books 天津图书馆古籍 Tianjin Library Rare Books 扬州市图书馆古籍 Yangzhou Library Rare Books 上海图书馆家谱 Shanghai Library Jiapu Collection 东文研汉籍影像库 Rare Books from the Toyo Bunko 哈佛大学善本特藏 Shan ben from Harvard Yenching Library 山东大学图书馆古籍 Shangdong University Library Rare Books 澳门大学图书馆古籍 Xiamen University Library Rare Books 日本永青文库捐赠汉籍 2018 Eisei Bunko Donation of Rare Books 民国时期文献 About 100,000 titles of Republican e-books 民国法律 Republican laws and regulations 民国期刊 Scanned image database for some 8,000 Republican journal titles 民国报纸 Scanned image database for the newspapers 益世报 (1917-1930), 华北日报 (1929), 新华日报 (1938-1945), and 大刚报 (1945-1951) 电子图书 Modern E-books (about 70,000 titles will full-text access) 博士论文 Index database (no full-text) for doctoral theses including abstracts and table of contents information 民族文字古籍特藏库 Rare books and manuscripts in the scripts and languages of the national minorities 广西民族文字古籍特藏库 Collection of national minorities documents from Guangxi 云南民族文字古籍特藏库 Collection of national minorities documents from Yunnan 西藏民族文字古籍特藏 Collection of national minorities documents from Tibet 日本细菌战资源库 Database on Japanese Bacteriological Warfare 东京审判资源库 Database on the Tokyo Trials (please note that this database is different than the one that Princeton users have access to that was developed by Shanghai Jiaotong University) 中华古籍善本联合书目 Chinese Shanben Catalog (图录 of 3,481 editions of 善本 in Chinese and international collections. In most cases only the first page of the first juan is available for viewing. The information provided about the holding institutions is rather cryptic.) Regrettably, NLC does not currently provide a central search index to all of the databases above. Most of the collections however are actually listed in the Zhongguo Yanjiu Faxian system. An empty search in this system will bring up a complete list of purely bibliographic entries and entries for scanned rare books from many libraries from China and beyond. Selecting the 开源 option allows browsing the free online collections of all libraries by subject (an extended 四库 classification). This function might in many cases provide better discovery options for the material in the free NLC collections that the actual databases above, but many of the links in Zhongguo Yanjiu Faxian have not yet been update to the free version of the NLC databases.
SOURCE LIST
Princeton China Studies Research Guide
TAGS
LAST MODIFIED
2026-01-16