Chinese Collection

Started as the first "Chinese Library" in the United States over 100 years ago, the East Asian Library at Columbia now has nearly half a million Chinese-language books, serials, microforms and video tapes related to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao in all fields of humanities and social sciences in support of research and teaching at Columbia. Very brief information on the library can be found in the document of simplified (简体) or traditional (正体) Chinese. Generally, the Chinese collection does not include materials on science and technology. Translations of Western works of general nature are not collected. The collection has recently started including Chinese language publications published outside Greater China Area and translation titles of special scholarly value.

Finding Books

CLIO, the online catalog of the library, contains records for most Chinese language materials, including books, periodicals, micro documents, and databases. Chinese Romanization in Library of Congress Pinyin, which is based on China's Pinyin system but has significant exceptions, should be used for searching CLIO. This is very important for new users of CLIO! Chinese characters may be used for searching, but mainly because of many technology-related issues, the search results are not always satisfactory.

Most materials have Library of Congress classification numbers and are intershelved with the Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, and Western-language collections.

Offsite books can be retrieved to the library in Kent Hall by filling the online form of "Request from Offsite" at the bottom of a given record from CLIO, or by filling the print form at the Circulation Desk.

East Asian Library's rare/special books can also be found in Clio, and they can only be used in the Kress Rare Book Reading Room during its open hours. However, many of the rare/special Chinese books housed elsewhere, such as the Rare Book & Manuscript Library of Butler Library, cannot be easily found out in Clio now as of 2009. The librarian may be contacted for searching those materials.

We have acquired a decent number of e-books from various sources. They can be found in E-books of Chinese E-resources.

Finding Periodicals

Information about periodical holdings, including current issues, is also available in CLIO. Current periodical issues are housed in the Chinese periodical area in the second alcove on the north side of the reading room. Bound volumes are intershelved with the rest of the collection in the library stacks. Due to space limitation only the most recent two years of periodical titles are kept in the library in Kent Hall. Older volumes are housed at offsite.

A significant number of mainland Chinese periodicals, from the first issue to current, are available online in subscribed databases, particularly the subscribed database of China Academic Journals. CEPS (Chinese Electronic Periodical Services) and TEPS (Taiwan Electronic Periodical Services) and Gu gong qi kan tu wen zi liao ku (National Palace Museum journals) contain good collections of full texts of journals and magazines. Unless for special purpose, one may not need to request those journals included in these full-text databases to be sent from offsite.

Finding Newspapers

The library receives approximately 20 Chinese-language newspapers from the People's Republic, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in paper copy via air mail. As they are received, they are put on racks in the Chinese periodical area. Two or three months of back issues are stored temporarily under the table in front of the current periodical alcove before being moved to storage until microfilm copies arrive. At that time, paper copies are discarded. If you need to see paper copies in storage, please check with the circulation desk or, between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM, with staff in Room 318. The vast majority of Chinese newspapers are only received on microfilm on a yearly basis. These are stored in the microfilm cabinets on the 100 level of the stacks or offsite.

Full texts of hundreds of newspapers from People's Republic are readily available from the subscribed database of China Core Newspaper Database. Full texts of a dozen or so leading newspapers of Taiwan are available in the subscribed database of Xin wen zhi shi ku (Newspapers in Taiwan). Last but not least, Ren min ri bao (People's Daily) is available electronically, covering contents from 1946.

Finding Reference Books and Oversize Materials

All reference books shelved along the sides of the main reading room have records in CLIO. Reference books include dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies and the most recent copies of many statistical yearbooks. They have Library of Congress call numbers and are shelved in call number order. Due to space considerations, a small number of reference titles, mostly large sets, are shelved on regular stacks in the library, but marked with sign of non-circulation. If some reference titles have a second copy, the second copy is often shelved in regular stacks and is for loan. A few oversize maps are located on the shelves under the display cabinet near the Library exit.

In electronic format, Ci hai, Charles Muller Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, Han yu da ci dian, Quan guo bao kan suo yin and Zhonghua min guo qi kan lun wen suo yin are available for access.

Finding Other Types of Materials

The library also includes decent collections of oracle bones, paper Gods, and other types of materials. Other branches of the university libraries also hold some Chinese language materials. They are not necessarily all in the library online catalog; if they are, the catalog records may not have been updated according to current Library of Congress Romanization and classification, as in the cases of Chinese Oral History Project collection of reminiscences and personal papers. The Chinese Studies Librarian may help to locate those materials.

Getting Help

Locating materials in this rich library can be a complicated process, and even frequent users often need to ask for help. You can get assistance in the following places:

Circulation Desk
For basic questions, the circulation desk staff can provide assistance. They can assist in interpreting a record in CLIO, or suggesting steps to follow if books are missing from the shelves but are not checked out. If you know what book, serial, or newspaper you are looking for, they can provide the quick assistance.

Reference Desk
The reference desk is staffed 2:00 - 5:00 PM weekdays by professional librarians with subject and language expertise who can assist with more complicated questions. You can also make an appointment for a longer in-depth consultation.

The Chinese Studies Librarian is Chengzhi Wang. He can be reached by e-mail, or by phone at (212) 854-3721.