Have a question? Want to ask about a database or a book? Have a recommendation? Want to set up a reference consultation?
Email (bk60@nyu.edu) the East Asian Studies Librarian, Dr. Beth Katzoff
This library guide is for use with course #EAST-UA 950 and is based on the syllabus provided by Dr. Kyunghee Pyun.
Also recommended is the library guide for Art & Art History.
When writing a research paper:
Come up with a research question that you hope to address or answer. Your research question may actually be multiple questions.
With your research question, perform a literature review to see what scholarly sources (peer reviewed) have already been published on the subject
For example, try searching by subject heading in the library catalog.
try using EBSCO Discovery Services or Worldcat to see what has been published already. PLEASE NOTE: EBSCO is leaving NYU Library in June 2025
try searching journal databases with scholarly publications to give you secondary sources
- some journal databases: Bibliography of Asian Studies, JSTOR, MLA International Bibliography, GenderWatch, Project Muse
if you want to search in CJK languages try CAJ/中国学术期刊全文数据库, KISS/한국 의 핵심 지식 정보 자원, Zassaku Plus/ 雑誌記事索引データベース,ざっさくプラス
To look at an existing bibliography on the subject, try Oxford Bibliographies database.
You can also search Dissertations and Theses Global database to see what others have written on the subject (but may not be published).
For primary sources, try searching some of our newspapers for articles published during the time you are writing about
a few examples in English:
The Japan Times Archive
Access World News.
Try some of our databases that have primary source collections like
AM Collections (contains the 4 database collections listed below and more)
China: Trade, Politics and Culture: 1793-1980
China: American and the Pacific
Foreign Office Files for China
Foreign Office Files for Japan (see below for more)
Keep track of the sources you use for your bibliography.
Try using citation management software like RefWorks, Endnote, Zotero, and more. (see our Citation Management Guide for more info)
Go back and forth from your original question to other ideas by using relevant secondary sources. Refine your question, and revise it!
(derived from Vogt, Gabriele. "How to Ask: Research Questions." In Studying Japan: Handbook of Research Designs, Fieldwork and Methods, edited by Nora Kottmann, and Cornelia Reiher, 53-67. Germany: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2020).
Searching the Library Catalog
Search with both keywords and subject headings to find your research materials.
Keyword searches can be used to find items that are associated with your topic. A search for a keyword or keyword phrase will result in items that may contain the keyword in the record, but not necessarily about the topic you want.
If you don't know a standard subject heading that fits what you are looking for, starting with a keyword search can help you locate the relevant subject headings in the record. If you have incomplete title or author information about a specific item, using a keyword can help you find it.
Examples:
Painting Japan History
Ceramics Korea History
Buddhist art China History
When searching a web search engine like Google, for example, you are using a keyword search and your results will be the records that have that keyword somewhere in it.
Subject Heading searches
Subject headings are used to describe the content or topic of an item in a catalog or database. At NYU, we use Library of Congress (LC) authorized subject headings to describe content. (to see what call number ranges indicate which subject areas, try browsing LC call number classification for History of Asia).
Examples:
Art -- Japan -- History
Ceramics -- Korea -- History
Painting -- China -- History
Artists' writings
Artists -- Interviews
Painters -- Interviews
Sculptors -- Interviews
Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc
Artists as authors
You can combine these searches.
You can search by:
China Art Digital Library (in Chinese and part of the China Research Gateway databases)
Art and Architecture Source
The Fashion and Race Database
Try Access World News and limit to China, Japan, or Korea.
Also try:
The Japan Times (on Trial until 3/31/24)
Read the daily newspaper in English up to the present.
The access URL is: https://www.japantimes.co.
(This is a separate access point from our existing subscription to the The Japan Times Archive.)
Search the Library Catalog and limit material to Video/Film (under Material Type). You can also limit language to Chinese, Japanese, or Korean if you want videos in those languages (under Language drop down menu). All are at the Avery Fisher Center for Music and Media on the 7th floor of Bobst Library.
You can also search the databases:
To find out what we have at NYU, search the NYU library catalog
To find out what is available elsewhere (and then you can request through Interlibrary Loan or EZBorrow), search these
Search for books and more in libraries in the U.S. and around the world. Indicates when NYU libraries holds a copy of a book and shows you nearby libraries with holdings. Great for searching books in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean scripts and for getting information to request through Interlibrary Loan.
Free version of WorldCat. Search for books and more in libraries in the U.S. and around the world.
Google Scholar is a central search for scholarly literature. It covers disciplines and sources, peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
BrillOnline Chinese Reference Library offers reliable lexical and encyclopedic information for beginners and advanced readers of classical Chinese texts. The Collection includes Brill's Chinese - English Dictionary, and China Encyclopedic Resources.
Over 250 of these well-known, used and trusted volumes published since the 1960s are available online; covers 14 subject areas, including General History, Regional History, Literary Studies, Philosophy, and Religious Studies.
Online collection of dictionaries, encyclopedias, biographical sources, quotations, bilingual dictionaries, and measurement conversions covering topics from the arts to the sciences.
The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism [DDB] (電子佛教辭典) is a compilation of Chinese ideograph-based terms, texts, temple, schools, persons, etc. found in Buddhist canonical sources.
Dissertations and Theses Global contains indexes, dissertations and some theses. Full-text is available for many dissertations and theses, including those from NYU.
JapanKnowledge (ジャパンナレッジ) provides access to electronic versions of major dictionaries and encyclopedias - essential Japanese reference sources, as well as databases for some weekly journals and maps published in Japan. In particular, the English encyclopedia, Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan (講談社), can help when looking up a term, person, or source about Japan.
Oxford Art online
Oxford Art Online allows searching across both the Benezit Dictionary of Artists and Grove Art Online. The Benezit Dictionary of Artists is a standard reference collection of artists' biographies. It is international in scope, and covers all periods and styles.
Oxford Bibliographies presents constantly updated articles that contain citations (with annotations) and commentaries for sources across the disciplines. Users can search topics and gather relevant journal article and book citations, online resources, data sources, and more.
Search various bibliographies.
Example: A search for keywords China and Art, brings up these bibliographies (among others)
"Contemporary Chinese Art Since 1976"
"Buddhist Art and Architecture In China"
Or, a search for keywords Japan and Art, brings up these bibliographies (among others)
"Japanese Ceramics"
"Japanese Buddhist Sculpture"
Or, a search for keywords, Korea and Art, brings up this bibliography (among others)
"Buddhist Art and Architecture in Korea"
Oxford Handbooks Online contains the complete text of the Oxford Handbooks series, including titles in business, history, literature, music, philosophy, and more. Oxford Handbooks Online also contains pre-print articles.
The Oxford Research Encyclopedias (OREs) offer long-form overview articles written, peer-reviewed, and edited by leading scholars. Each of the twenty-five distinct encyclopedias cover both foundational and cutting-edge topics in order to develop, over time, an anchoring knowledge base for major areas of research across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
The Treasury of Lives database is a biographical encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia, and the Himalayan region. The Treasury provides accessible and well-researched biographies of a wide range of figures, from Buddhist masters to artists and political officials; most essays are peer reviewed. Content is enhanced by a dynamic map of Asia.
What are reference materials?
Reference materials are sources that provide background information or quick facts on any given topic. There are many different types.
These include almanacs, bibliographies, biographical resources, dictionaries, encyclopedias (both general and by subject), handbooks, indexes, statistics, and citation guides.
ARTstor
ARTstor is a repository of images of art, architecture, and design. The images are sourced from museums, libraries, archives, and photographers. ARTstor includes a suite of software tools to view, present, and manage images for research and teaching. ARTstor is supplemented by additional content, including publicly available image collections and locally-produced NYU collections. Artstor merged with JSTOR on August 1, 2024. It can now be accessed on the JSTOR platform.
China Art Digital Library (access through China Research Gateway)
The China Art Digital Library database is a collection of precious art pictures from the past five thousand years to the present, which comprehensively shows the development and achievements of various arts in various periods and categories in China.
Historical Photographs of China is an online collection of digitized images of pictures taken between 1870 and 1950. Its 6,000-plus images can be searched by keyword, date, and so on. The collection's designers are continuing to expand it and are seeking feedback from users.
National Diet Library of Japan Digital Collections
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/?__lang=en
Finding Images, guide created by the North American Coordinating Council of Japanese Library Resources (NCC)
https://guides.nccjapan.org/c.php?g=355419&p=2399810
The online version of the Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS) contains records on all subjects (especially in the humanities and the social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide and in Western languages.
Dissertations and Theses Global contains indexes, dissertations and some theses. Full-text is available for many dissertations and theses, including those from NYU.
EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) encompasses articles in databases across many disciplines. Users can locate peer reviewed articles, videos, audio files, images, and more from a range of subjects.
Full download of DRM-protected ebooks requires EBSCO account registration and Adobe Digital Editions.
GenderWatch indexes scholarly, radical, community, and independent publications from 1970 to present relevant to gender, women's, and LGBTQ studies. It provides information from both academic and grassroots perspectives on a wide range of gender-related topics, such as sexuality, family, religion, societal roles, race and ethnicity, feminism, masculinity, eating disorders, healthcare, and the workplace. Notable titles include Off Our Backs, Transgender Tapestry, Sister Namibia, and Out and About, among others.
Covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more. Indexes more than 1,700 academic historical journals in over 40 languages. Publication dates of coverage: 1955 to present.
The MLA International Bibliography provides bibliographic records for books, book chapters, journal articles, and dissertations published in the fields of modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. Full text is available for some articles. The MLAIB covers items published from around 1920 to the present.
Provides full-text access to humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from scholarly publishers.
Access World News provides the html full text and, for some titles, the pdf "as printed" visual representation, of articles from a variety of national and international news sources, including newspapers, digital-native news websites, television and radio transcripts, blogs, college and university newspapers, journals, magazines, and some audio and video. Most international titles are English language. Dates of coverage vary from title to title, but primarily span the late 20th century to present.
Asahi Shimbun Cross Search takes over from Kikuzo II Visual (Asahi Shinbun, 聞蔵Ⅱビジュアル, 朝日新聞記事データベース) as of November 2022. Asahi Shimbun Cross Search is a newspaper database for the Asahi shinbun containing articles published from 1879 to the present. It also includes articles from the weekly magazines Aera as well as Shūkan Asahi, the annual new-word dictionary Chiezō, Asahi shinbun jinbutsu dētabēsu, and Asahi shinbun rekishi shashin ākaibu. As of February 2024, a full-text search of the Image Database of Regional Pages is available in the Image Database of Regional Pages β version.
For English language articles, select "English News."
For a video tutorial: Asahi Shimbun Cross-Search video
The English-language Japan Chronicle Weekly (1900–1940) is a British-oriented newspaper that covers Japan’s engagement with modernity, war, political and social upheaval and seismic social change in East Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. This collection includes the Kobe Weekly Chronicle (1900-1901) the predecessor of the Japan Chronicle Weekly. It offers a perspective of expatriate communities in Japan and East Asia from 1900-1941.
Japan Times Archives provides full-text searching and page images of the English-language newspaper Japan Times from 1897-2022 (Dec.). Japan Times is the oldest English language newspaper in Japan.
*Includes content for The Japan Advertiser. Founded by an American, the Japan Advertiser served as an essential Western perspective during Japan's aggressive advancement into Asia until the title was absorbed into the Japan Times in November 1940. It is a full image/full text searchable digital archive (1913-1940) and is available alongside the Japan Times Digital Archive.*
NK News is an english-language news site focused on North Korea. Content includes news, opinion pieces, analysis, travel reports, testimonials from North Koreans, and other information about North Korea.
If you are unsure whether an email is legitimate, please email contact@nknews.org.
This resource supplies access to the daily newspaper People's Daily (Renmin Ribao, Ren Min Ri Bao, 人民日报) from the People's Republic of China. Access dates back to 1946 and extends to the present.
To enter database click on the 'Search People's Daily - Renmin Ribao (1946-2011)?' link.
PressReader (formerly PressDisplay) provides access to newspapers from around the world, often in the original language. Dates of coverage vary from the most current three months to the most current decade. Newspapers are presented in a browsable, "as printed" visual format.
English language daily newspaper from South Korea
Routledge handbooks Chinese history
Routledge handbooks Japanese history
Routledge handbooks Korean history
Masselos, Jim. The Great Empires of Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
call number: NYU Bobst / Main Collection DS12 .G74 2010
Some Primary Source Databases at NYU Library (English language)