LibGuides: Asian Studies: Text Collections

Online Text Collections

Digital South Asia Library
A project of the Center for Research Libraries, this website provides access to information about contemporary and historical South Asia, including full-text documents, statistical data, electronic images, cartographic representations, and pedagogical resources for language instruction.

Siku Quanshu Online This link opens in a new window
The online edition of Siku Quanshu spans five thousand years of Chinese history, geography, politics, economics, science, technology, philosophy, and close to 3,500 works with a total of more than 36,000 volumes. The compilation contains large numbers of rare books and manuscripts and is an important tool for East Asian Studies.
On-campus users need to download the Client Program (setup.exe) onto their computers (in Internet Explorer browser on the Windows platform) in order to use the database.
Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC) Core Texts Collection This link opens in a new window
Searchable scriptures and key texts from the Buddhist Digital Resource Center. Fondren Library owns access to Modules 1-17 of the Core Texts Collections.
China and the Modern World This link opens in a new window
Manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, ephemera, and other historical documents on China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Fondren Library owns access to the following archival collections:
- Diplomacy and Political Secrets, 1869-1950
- Missionary, Sinology and Literary Periodicals, 1817-1949
- Records of the Maritime Customs Service of China, 1854-1949
- Hong Kong, Britain and China, 1841-1951
- Imperial China and the West, part 1, 1815-1881
- Imperial China and the West, part 2, 1865-1905
- Records of Shanghai and the International Settlement, 1836-1955
- Hong Kong, Britain, and China, Part II: 1965a-1993

Tibetan and Himalayan Library
The Tibetan and Himalayan Library (THL) is a publisher of websites, information services, and networking facilities relating to the Tibetan plateau and southern Himalayan regions. THL promotes the integration of knowledge and community across the divides of academic disciplines, the historical and the contemporary, the religious and the secular, the global and the local.

Area Studies: Japan This link opens in a new window
Manuscripts, journals, and other primary documents on the history and culture of Japan from the 15th-20th centuries.
"Highlights include:
● Medieval manuscripts relating to Japan, including an account by Marco Polo;
● The logbook of William Adams (1564-1620), alias Miura Anjin, the first Englishman known to have visited Japan; and
● The journals, printed articles and other papers of William Elliot Griffis (1843-1928), American author, teacher and educational reformer in Japan (Adam Matthew)."
Meiji Japan This link opens in a new window
Personal papers, diaries, artwork and manuscripts from Edward Sylvester Morse, who lived and taught in Japan during the early days of that nation's openness to Western trade and visitors.

Tibet Oral History Project
he Tibet Oral History Project (TOHP) aims to preserve the history and culture of the Tibetan people. As advised by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, we record the life experiences of Tibetan elders who were forced to flee their homeland following the Chinese invasion. His Holiness has emphasized the urgency of conducting interviews of these elders before they pass away and their stories are lost forever. TOHP has videotaped the oral histories of 278 Tibetan elders living in exile. This oral history collection is invaluable. It provides intimate portraits of the elders - the last generation to live in a free, unoccupied Tibet - and preserves for future generations the memories of their homeland.

Also available in hard copy and on DVD, DS786 .T4966.

Central Asia, Persia & Afghanistan, 1834-1922: From Silk Road to Soviet Rule This link opens in a new window
Correspondence, intelligence reports, agents’ diaries, minutes, maps, newspaper excerpts and other materials from the British Foreign Office's FO 65, FO 106, FO 371 and FO 539 series on Central Asian affairs.

Government Sources

Asian Studies This link opens in a new window
Archival materials from the U.S. State Department on events in east and southeast Asian history.
Fondren has access to the following collections:
- China: Records of the U.S. Department of State, 1940-1944;
- China: Records of the U.S. Department of State, 1930-1939: Part 2
- Japan at War and Peace, 1930-1949: U.S. State Department Records on the Internal Affairs of Japan
- International Women's Movement: The Pan Pacific/Southeast Asia Women's Association, 1950-1985
- Japan: Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs, 1950-1954
- Japan: Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Political Relations, 1945-1949
- Japan: Records of the U.S. Department of State, 1950-1959
- Korea: Records of the U.S. Department of State, 1930-1963
- United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967: Study Prepared by the Department of Defense (The Pentagon Papers)
U.S. Intelligence on Asia, 1945-1991 This link opens in a new window
"This unique online collection is to provide ... the declassified documentary record about the successes and failures of the U.S. intelligence community in the Far East during the Cold War (1945-1991). Particular emphasis is given to America’s principal antagonists in Asia during the Cold War era: the People’s Republic of China, North Korea and North Vietnam. However, countries such as Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia are covered as well (Brill)."
Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980 This link opens in a new window
Documents on China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan produced and received by the British Foreign Office from 1919-1980, including diplomatic dispatches, letters, newspaper cuttings, maps, reports of court cases, biographies of leading personalities, and summaries of events.
Fondren owns access to the following modules:

-1919-1929: Kuomintang, CCP and the Third International
-1930-1937: The Long March, civil war in China and the Manchurian Crisis
-1938-1948: Open Door, Japanese war and the seeds of communist victory
-1949-1956: The Communist revolution
-1957-1966: The Great Leap Forward
-1967-1980: The Cultural Revolution"
Foreign Office Files for Japan, 1919-1952 This link opens in a new window
Files from the British Foreign Office dealing with Japan in the early and mid-twentieth century, covering Japanese-British relations as they evolved through and after World War II. Includes dispatches, correspondence, maps, video interviews, and other formerly restricted papers.
Fondren owns access to the following modules:

- Module I: Japanese Imperialism and the War in the Pacific, 1931-1945
- Module II: Occupation of Japan, 1946-1952
- Module III: Japan and Great Power Status, 1919-1930
Foreign Office Files for Southeast Asia, 1963-1980 This link opens in a new window
Correspondence, maps, government dispatches and press releases from the British Foreign Office regarding Southeast Asia. Covers trade relations, establishment of independent nations, civil unrest, and economic growth.
Fondren owns access to two parts:

- Cold War in the Pacific, Trade Relations and the Post-Independence Period, 1963-1966
- Foundations of Economic Growth and Industrialisation, 1967-1980
Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Reports (FBIS) This link opens in a new window
Reports from the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), an agency providing open source political intelligence, including transcriptions of news and intercepted radio broadcasts.
Fondren Library owns FBIS Daily Reports for the Middle East & Africa, Near East & South Asia 1974-1996 and Annexes 1974-1996. Some additional reports may be available on microfilm through the Kelley Center for Government Research; check the library catalog.