Subject Resources for

Asian Studies (English language sources)

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Materials in Western languages about Asian social sciences and humanities are found in The Walter C. Koerner Library. The Asian Library has materials in Asian languages. Western language materials on other Asian topics, such as education, fine arts, law, medicine, forestry, and commerce, are found in Education Library, Fine Arts Library , Law Library, Woodward Library, and David Lam Library respectively.

Contents:
  1. Geographical Areas of Study
  2. Article Indexes & Databases
  3. General References
  4. Listservs, Blogs etc.
  5. Online Resources
  6. Associations and Organizations
  7. Statistical Resources
  8. UBC Departments

News about Asian Studies

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Geographical Areas of Study:

General References:

Statistical Resources:

Article Indexes / Databases:

    Looking for journal articles? Start with an Index

  • Bibliography of Asian Studies
    More than 700,000 records for western-language materials on all subjects (especially humanities and social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide since 1971
  • Asia-Studies Full-text Online
    The premier database for the study of the Asia-Pacific region. Asia-Studies.com brings together thousands of full-text reports covering 55 countries on a multitude of business, government, economic, and social issues
  • MLA International Bibliography
    MLA International Bibliography, produced by the Modern Language Association of America, consists of bibliographic records pertaining to literature, language, linguistics, and folklore and includes coverage from 1926 to the present
  • Asian American Drama
    Asian American Drama represents the various ethnicities within the Asian American community. Along with many works by writers of Japanese, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Chinese descent, the collection includes plays by writers of Hawaiian, Indian, Thai, Korean, Persian, and Malaysian ancestry
  • Portal to Asian Internet Studies
    Committed to directing users to Asian area content in the humanities and social sciences, the Portal to Asian Internet Resources (PAIR) is supported by an impressive complement of area studies scholars, bibliographers and subject selectors
  • Asia-Studies Humanities
    Covers broad areas of arts and culture, history, language, literature, philosophy, and religion
  • Historical Chinese Language Materials in British Columbia Database
    Covers the social history of British Columbia, Canada; Chinese-Canadians in BC. This resource provides over 11,000 records from 11 archives, museums and libraries that have been either exported or created from scratch and incorporated in the database

    For help finding articles, take a look at the online guide, How to Find Articles.

Listservs & Blogs:

    Listservs, Blogs etc.

  • H-Asia
    H-Asia is a "member of H-Net Humanities & Social Sciences Online. The primary purpose of H-ASIA is to enable historians and other Asia scholars to easily communicate current research and teaching interests; to discuss new articles, books, papers, approaches, methods and tools of analysis; to test new ideas and share comments and tips on teaching. H-Asia is especially committed to discussing region wide, comparative and professional issues important to scholars of Asia."

  • The Best of the Asian Studies WWW Monitor
    Blog belonging to Dr T. Matthew Ciolek, Australian National University. Dr. Ciolek uses this blog to "integrate data about the most informative and most useful online resources reported Jan 2004 - present in The Asian Studies WWW Monitor." Provides a rating for each website as well as a quick list of site contents & best features.

Online Resources:

    Online Resources

  • Bodleian Oriental Manuscript Collections
    A digital image collection that "presents facsimiles of some of the Bodleian s most valuable and most fragile manuscripts from many cultures of the Near East and Asia," including Indian Mughal paintings, Japanese manuscripts, and Persian poetry.
  • IDEAS: Image Database to Enhance Asian Studies
    A collaborative effort by Colorado College, Earlham College, Lake Forest College, and St Olaf College, IDEAS is a "shared searchable database" that contains images of Asian art, architecture, religious sites and festivals, food, street scenes, pamphlets, postcards and more.
  • e-Asia Digital Library
    From the University of Oregon Library, this site has "a collection of digitized e-books and a database of full text web resources....based largely on resources held at the Library." Links to maps, images, audio, film and digitized books. The materials cover East Asia: China, Japan, North & South Korea and Taiwan and a wide array of subjects including business, cinema, education, food, literature, history, music, performing arts, religion, science, communication and much more.
  • The Newsletter
    From the International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS), the Newsletter is "a forum for scholars to share commentary and opinion; short research essays; book, journal and website reviews; artwork and fiction; and announcements of events, projects and conferences with colleagues in academia and beyond." IIAS provides free access to Newsletter issues from March 2002 to present.
  • Fukuoka Asian Culture Prizes
    The city of Fukuoka instituted the Asian Culture Prizes as a means to "preserve, develop, and promote the harmonious coexistence of the diverse Asian cultures.....(and to) show respect to those who have made outstanding contributions to academia, arts, and culture in Asia." Each prize winner gives a lecture and these are freely available on site back to 1991.
  • OpenDOAR - Directory of Open Access Repositories
    Asia page providing direct links to the Institutional Repositories at universities in 20 Asian/Middle Eastern countries.
  • Asian Studies WWW Virtual Library.
    Edited by Dr T.M.Ciolek, at the Australian National University, this site "provides an authoritative, continuously updated hypertext guide and access tool to scholarly information resources on the Internet. It deals with the Asian continent as a whole, as well as with individual Asian regions, countries, and territories. (Focuses on) Asian societies, politics, economies, histories, and cultures."

    Other related sites from the WWW Virtual Library include:

    • Asian Studies WWW Monitor
      "Provides virtually daily abstracts and reviews of new/updated online resources of significance to research, teaching and communications dealing with Asian Studies. It is published by the Internet Publications Bureau, RSPAS, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific."
    • Asian Studies Virtual Library Search Engine
      Provides custom search engines that search pre-selected websites including, the Asian Studies WWW Monitor, OAIster's database of e-prints, the Asian Law Centre, and several of the Virtual Library's list-serv logs.
    • Coombsweb Asian Studies Server
      Dr. Ciolek's web portal to Asian Studies resources. Includes links to various area studies pages within the Virtual Library (VL) and pages for Asian-Pacific Studies within the Australian National University (ANU) system. Also provides a custom search engine that searches relevant ANU webpages and VL databases.
    • Buddhist Studies WWW Virtual Library.
      "This site keeps track of leading information facilities in the fields of Buddhism and Buddhist studies." Provides custom search engines and links to subject-oriented bibliographies, lists of relevant scholarly websites, links to meditation & study centres and more.

  • Guide to the Asian Collections at the International Institute of Social History
    This guide presents a survey of collections at the IISH with a substantial Asian interest and aims to direct researchers toward historical material on Asia, both in ostensibly Asian collections and in many others
  • Virtual Collection of Masterpieces
    This is a project of ASEMUS, a network of museums in Asia and Europe, to provide images & accompanying information for 1200+ Asian works of art. 62 museums from Asia and Europe have contributed to the collection. This is a useful search tool for people interested in art and cultural history.
  • UCLA Language Materials Project.
    "The UCLA Language Materials Project (LMP) is an on-line bibliographic database of teaching and learning materials for over 100 Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs)." These include Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Hindi, Mongolian, Malay, Nepalese, Tibetan, Urdu, Thai, Tagalog, and more. Full bibliographic information is provided for each material listed, as well as ordering information where possible. Each language has a portal page with key external websites, language maps, linguistic history, key dialect features etc.

Associations and Organizations:

    Associations and Organizations

  • American Oriental Society
    This is the "oldest learned society in the United States devoted to a particular field of scholarship." Its main interests are "basic research in the languages and literatures of Asia...including philology, literary criticism, textual criticism, paleography, epigraphy, linguistics, biography, archaeology,... philosophy, religion, folklore and art."
  • Asia Research Institute
    Established at the University of Singapore, this group focuses on research and education on "the Arts and Social Sciences, Business, Law, Design and Environment, and...Public Policy." Provides links to its working papers, newsletter and annual reports via the publications tab .
  • Asia Society
    "A nonpartisan, nonprofit educational institution....working to promote understanding among the people, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the United States. We seek to enhance dialogue, encourage creative expression, and generate new ideas across the fields of policy, business, education, arts, and culture."
  • Asiatic Society of Japan
    Japan's oldest "learned society." Its mandate is to "serve a general audience of well-read non-specialists who share intellectual interests in "things Japanese." Summaries of the society's monthly lectures are available for 1994 - 2005, as well as its annual reports 1994 - 2004 and speakers' bios.
  • Asiatica Association
    "A non-profit, non-governmental, cultural association, which has been established to promote and diffuse the study of the Asian cultures. It is open to all bona fide scholars whose interest is the knowledge of Asian countries and the encounter between Asian values, Human Rights values, and Western values."
  • Association for Asian Studies
    "The association covers all aspects of Asian Studies, including literature; art; religion; philosophy; language; history; and cinema." As well as information on the association's annual meeting and regional conferences and publications, the site provides relevant external links and abstracts of hundreds of papers from annual meetings since 1995.
  • International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS)
    "A postdoctoral research centre based in Leiden and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Its objective is to encourage the interdisciplinary and comparative study of Asia and promote national and international cooperation. The institute focuses on the human and social sciences and on their interaction with other sciences."

UBC Departments:

And don't forget to try: UBC Library Catalogue or Web/Internet Search Tools
Contact: Shawnna Parlongo
Last Updated: 8-Feb-2010


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