Research Guides: Asian Studies: Databases

Databases

Purdue Subscription Databases
Free Internet Databases

Art Full Text
A comprehensive resource for art information from more than 900 periodicals, including 280 peer-reviewed journals, as well as indexing and abstracting of over 13,000 art dissertations. Researchers can track the careers of artists and review their materials and methods, and find books by and about artists, as well as interviews, profiles, and much more. Indexing of art reproductions helps users find virtually any work of interest—including works by emerging artists—as well as examples of styles and movements in art.

Arts & Humanities Citation Index
is a multidisciplinary database covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities. It indexes 1,100 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals. Searches may focus on authors, contents of individual journals, ranges of publications dates, keywords, and by combinations of the above. An added feature is the capacity to trace citatons to given authors, etc. A Representative selection of non-English language journals is included.

Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS)
The most comprehensive Western-language bibliographical database for research on East, Southeast and South Asia. It covers Western-language journal articles, review articles, conference proceedings and chapters in edited volumes with special focus on the humanities and social sciences.

Coverage: 1971 – current.

British Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980
British diplomatic reporting on Chinese developments during this time period.
British Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan, & Afghanistan 1947-1980
British diplomatic reporting on these countries for this time period.
British Foreign Office Files for Japan, 1919-1952
British diplomatic reporting on Japan for this time period.
British Foreign Office Files for Southeast Asia, 1963-1980
British diplomatic reporting on this region for this time period.

China National Knowledge Infrastructure - English version
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Three CNKI databases in the Chinese language feature full-text articles in the fields of history, literature, and philosophy, including subtopics such as archaeology, the arts, biography, folklore, language, psychology, religion, and sports: 1) China Academic Journals (CAJ), current year and an archive back to 1994; 2) China Dissertations and Master's Theses (CDMD), current year and an archive back to 2000; 3) China Conference Proceedings (CPCD), current year an archive back to 2000.

NOTE: In order to download PDFs you must first click on the document you wish to view, then select the PDF button from the new screen. If you are asked to sign in choose the IP address option.
Digital National Security Archive This link opens in a new window
Curated and indexed declassified U.S. Government documents covering U.S. foreign and national security policy to Asia and other global regions.

East India Company 1599-1947
Purdue Users Only. Collections from the India Office in the British Library containing information about East India Company trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent.

Ethnic NewsWatch
Provides access to full-text articles from 200 magazines, journals, and newspapers published by the ethnic, minority, and native press in America. Searchable in both English and Spanish.
Historical Abstracts
Abstracts of selected journal articles, citations of books, book reviews and dissertations on the history of all parts of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to present.
Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
LLBA abstracts and indexes the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences. The database covers all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Documents indexed include journal articles, book reviews, books, book chapters, dissertations and working papers.
Philosopher's Index
The Philosopher's Index provides indexing and abstracts from books and journals of philosophy and related fields. It covers the areas of ethics, aesthetics, social philosophy, political philosophy, epistemology, and metaphysic logic as well as material on the philosophy of law, religion, science, history, education, and language.

Coverage: 1940-Present
Policy Commons This link opens in a new window
Collection of research from policy experts, nonpartisan think tanks, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Social Sciences Citation Index
Provides bibliographic data, citations and abstracts of English-language authors to significant articles from over 3,000 journals across 55 social science disciplines. Also covers individually selected, relevant items from over 3,500 of the world's leading scientific and technical journals.
Sociological Abstracts
This database abstracts and indexes the international literature of sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from thousands of serials publications and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers and working papers. Cited references are included for many journal articles.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
Provides citations, abstracts, and indexing of the international serials literature in political science and its complementary fields, including international relations, law, and public administration / policy. The database is building on the merged backfiles of Political Science Abstracts, 1975-2000, and ABC POL SCI, 1984-2000. Thesaurus of over 3,000 terms used to index records also available.

Anthropological Index Online
Indexes journals held by The Anthropology Library at the The British Museum (Museum of Mankind) which receives periodicals in all branches of anthropology, from academic institutions and publishers around the world.
Asian Historical Architecture
is a photographic survey of Asia's architectural heritage. Hthe site contains over 6500 photos of 461 sites in seventeen countries, with background information and virtual tours. The editors of this webpage are Tim Ciccone (Columbia University) and Abe Ahn, (Yale University); and professors Yunsheng Huang (UVA) , Robert D. Fiala (Concordia), and Kerk L Phillips (Brigham Young).
Asian Reading Room
The Asian Reading Room is the primary public access point for researchers seeking to use the Asian collections of the Library of Congress in the many languages of Asia. The reading room covers the area from the South Asian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to China, Japan, and Korea. With almost 2 million books, periodicals, newspapers, manuscripts, and electronic media, the collections are the most comprehensive sources of Asian language materials outside of Asia.
Bibliography for Seldom Studied and Endangered South Asian Languages
The Department of Linguistics, University of Osnabruck, Germany. This site is intended to help researchers of seldom studied or endangered South Asian languages, and those embarking on such a study for the first time, in locating literature on these languages. It is also intended to be a means of letting other researchers know of new work in the field which may be of interest to them. "South Asia" here includes India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Tibet.
Chinese Text Initiative
The Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia Library, the Chinese Text Initiative is an effort to make texts of Chinese literature available on the World Wide Web. These sites are still very much under construction.
Japanese Text Initiative
The University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center and the University of Pittsburgh East Asian Library comes the Japanese Text Initiative, a collaborative effort to make texts of classical Japanese literature available on the World Wide Web.
Penn Museum Geographic Collections
University of Pennsylvania Museum featuring links to geographic resources on their collections.
Silk Road Narratives
The Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington. A collection of historic texts that explores cultural contacts from 100 B.C. to the 1670s across Eurasia.
Smithsonian Institution Freer & Sackler Galleries
Describe and document Smithsonian Institution Asian collections.
South Asian Literary Recording Project
Launched in April 2000, to record the voices of South Asian authors for the Library of Congress' Archive of Recorded World Literature, the project has captured the readings of prominent South Asian poets, novelists, and playwrights. The authors recorded so far represent more than fifteen of the languages of India, Nepal, Pakistan, SriLanka and Bangladesh.
University of California Press Scholarship Editions
Contains complete texts of over 100 books on Asian topics.
A Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization
According to the author, Patricia Buckley Ebrey of Washington University, the goal of this "visual sourcebook" is to add to the material teachers can use to help their students understand Chinese history, culture, and society.