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East Asia Section: Chinese Studies

The Library of the Institute of Chinese Studies contains more than 100,000 monographs and about 40,000 volumes of periodicals, including 266 titles as running subscription. They cover a wide range of research fields in philosophy, history, society, culture, language, politics, economy and law, ranging from Chinese classical antiquity to the Qing Dynasty – especially the 19th century – to the Repulican era and up to the present. A number of special collections allow a view on specific aspects: the unique shanshu 善書 collection includes temple literature from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore; a small collection of early encyclopaedias 類書 rounds off the synoptic view of literature, as does a collection of schoolbooks. Literature on excavation dicoveries - especially manuscripts - highlights a completely different aspect of China. Around 4,000 films, 3,000 comics (mostly lianhuanhua 连环画) and more than 2,000 music recordings complete the collection. Extensive stocks of secondary literature support the historical, political, sociological and literary classification of the sources mentioned.

The institute has a large collection (around 200 titles) of collectanea 叢書 containing around 45,000 works. Most of the classical collections such as the Siku quanshu zhenben 四庫全書珍本, the Sibu beiyao 四部備要, the Baibu congshu 百部叢書, the Zhongguo xueshu mingzhu congshu 中國學術名著叢書 and the Minguo congshu 民國叢書 are represented, but also newer, less common titles such as the Xuxiu siku quanshu 續修四庫全書 and the Siku jinhuishu congkan 四庫禁毀書叢刊. Also available is the Huizu diancang quanshu 回族典藏全書, a compilation of very rare Chinese Islamic sources, which in Germany is otherwise only held at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

The collectanea are complemented by the Minguo jicui 民國籍萃 collection of over 16,000 volumes, an edition of smaller writings from the republican period (1912-1949), writings that were previously scattered among libraries throughout China and among a wide variety of private collections.

In addition to Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist classics, poetry and prose from all periods and a large collection of old and new Chinese local gazetteers 地方誌, there are also genealogies 家譜 and biographical chronicles 年譜. The Buddhist classics are available in Chinese editions as well as in Japanese and Korean editions.

An important part of the collection are periodicals, with a strong focus on publications from the Qing, Republic and People's Republic periods. Special attention is paid to the so-called xiaobao 小報 ("small newspapers"), magazines from around the turn from the 19th to the 20th century, which were published mainly in the area around Shanghai, often only for a very short time.

The collection has also strong holdings of magazines from the time of the Cultural Revolution as well as women's magazines. Particularly noteworthy among the periodicals are the Minguo zhenxi duankan duankan 民國珍稀短刊斷刊, Red Guard publications, Zhongguo jin xiandai nüxing qikan huibian 中國近現代女性期刊彙編, and an almost complete set of the important reprint collection Fuyin baokan ziliao 复印报刊资料.

In addition to its large collection of print and A/V media, the library is particularly known for its rich offer of digital resources. These include databases and tools created in Heidelberg as well as data collections resulting from international projects, and numerous commercial media. The offer is supplemented by the digital resources of CrossAsia, which are accessible throughout Germany. This offers researchers at Heidelberg a unique variety of source material and further literature.

Main areas of collection

  • Philosophy, history, society, culture, language, politics, economics and law (especially also of the Qing period)
  • Women's literature (especially women's magazines)
  • Textbooks from the late Qing period to the present day
  • Classical collections of works (collectanea)
  • Chinese periodicals since the late Qing period
  • Chinese music
  • Chinese film
  • Chinese comics
  • Digital resources

Special collections

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Latest Revision: 2024-02-16
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