China

Books & Videos: ACC Library Web page > Finding Books

To find books and multimedia items on China at the ACC Library, use the online catalog. Searching the online catalog with the term “China” and limiting the Fields to Search to Subject still results in almost 400 books! Try a more specific search, such as:

China guidebooks	China history	China foreign relations	China and literature
China and travel	Martial arts	China and art	China and medicine
China social life and customs	Buddhism and China	China civilization	World War, 1939-1945
China and economic conditions	China industrialization	Tibet	China and religion

- To find travel guides, use the phrases “China guidebooks”

- The Library of Congress call number for Asia is DS. Many China books are found in that area in both reference and circulating books on the upper floor.

- Remember truncation: using a wildcard ending (an asterisk, in most databases) in a search term to find variant endings: China* for instance will find books with the term China as well as Chinese. A typical book search might be: China* and poet*

- Community members may borrow circulating books by obtaining community borrowing cards at the ACC Library. Call 743-2260 for details.

For students enrolled in the China trip/class: Your professor may put additional books on reserve at the circulation desk.

Reference books: Main floor

Here are some reference books to help you start your research about China:

Facts about China	REFERENCE DS 706 .F25 2003
The Cambridge encyclopedia of China	REFERENCE DS 705 .C35
World Almanac	REFERENCE AY 67.N5 W7 (annual)
Modern China : a guide to a century of change	REFERENCE DS 774 .H796 2001
Dictionary of Chinese history	REFERENCE DS 733 .D54 1979
Outlines of Chinese symbolism and art motives	REFERENCE N 7740 .W55 1976
The Times atlas of China	REFERENCE G 2305 .T47 1974
Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures & Daily Life	REFERENCE GN 333 .W67 1998
Statesman's Yearbook (country information)	REFERENCE JA 51 .S7 (annual)

You may also want to consult the ACC Library’s research guides (under ACC Library > Research Guides and Tutorials) on other subjects such as art, philosophy, music, anthropology and archaeology, and many more.

You maylook at these reference books on learning Chinese:

The five thousand dictionary: an index to the character cards of the College of Chinese Studies
REFERENCE PL 1455 .F4 1966

Chinese characters; their origin, etymology, history, classification and signification
REFERENCE PL 1171 .W6 1965

China travel books:

A search of the online catalog with the terms "China and guidebooks" finds these circulating books. You may borrow these.

Beijing & Shanghai (Eyewitness Travel Guide by DK Press)
DS 795.A4 B457 2007

China (Lonely Planet)
DS 705 .C467 2005

Gale Virtual Reference Library:

Search this database to get full-text chapters from 250 reference books. (The ACC Library owns many of these reference books in printed format also.) Among the books it searches are: Countries and their Cultures, Geo-Data: the World Geographical Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Encyclopedia of World Biography, World Education Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, Europe: 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, and more.

Go to: ACC Library Web page > Finding Books > Reference > Gale Virtual Reference Library. Note: This is a subscription database. Access from off-campus is limited to ACC students, faculty and staff.

NetLibrary:

The ACC Library subscribes to a database of full-text electronic books, NetLibrary. It has dozens of potentially useful books on Switzerland subjects. Chapters can be read on the screen. To use it, go to: ACC Library Web page > Finding Books > NetLibrary. Note: This is a subscription database. Off-campus access is limited to ACC students, faculty and staff.

Articles and Article Databases:

The ACC Library subscribes to 400 journals, located in the Periodicals area on the main floor of the library. Among them are:

- General travel: Conde Nast Travel, National Geographic Traveler, International Railway Traveler, International Travel News, Travel Holiday.

- History: History, History Today, Journal of Modern History, Journal of the History of Ideas.

Article databases:

Use our subscription article databases to locate articles. Which you use depend on your topic. Consult a librarian for recommendations. To reach the online databases, go to:
ACC Library’s Web page > Finding Articles > General or Subject Databases.

To search these databases from home, follow screen directions to log in. For most topics, start with General Databases such as EBSCO's Academic Search Premier or the New York Times databases (articles from 1851 to today).

Under Subject databases, try databases such as AnthroSource or ArtStor.

China Web sites:

Save time and effort by starting with these useful sites:

Portals to the World: China http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/asian/China/China.html
Annotated links to selected Web sites about China, by Library of Congress: economy, business, culture, geography, law, language, literature, religions, more.

Country Studies: China http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cntoc.html
Country research about China from Library of Congress.

The World Factbook: China https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html
Country facts, maps, statistics, history of countries around the world, updated each year. From the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Lonely Planet’s China guide: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/destinations/asia/china
From the travel guide publisher.

Asia Society Museum http://www.asiasociety.org/arts/
With speeches, interviews, podcasts, videos, more. Also: http://www.asiasociety.org/arts/chinaphotos/ offers photos of 50 years in side the People's Republic of China.

Librarians’ Internet Index http://lii.org This subject directory lists thousands of high-quality Web sites. Search by the term China or a related term to find country guides, travel information, history, and much more.

Asian Historical Architecture http://www.orientalarchitecture.com/ Contains thousands of photographs of historical Asian architecture, browsable by country and city.

Asian Studies WWW Virtual Library http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVL-AsianStudies.html A directory of thousands of websites on Asian Studies.

AsiaSource http://www.asiasource.org/ On cultural, economic, social, historical, and politics of Asia: news, events, food, maps, statistics, holidays, more; links to many Web sites. From the Asia Society.

AskAsia http://www.askasia.org/ A resource site for K-12 Asian and Asian-American studies programs: lesson plans, maps, timelines, articles, origami lesson, more. Sponsored by the Asia Society.

Language and Literature: Asia http://connexion.oclc.org/WebZ/XPathfinderQuery?sessionid=0:term=6902:xid=LCP "This pathfinder includes information about language and literature in Asia." Includes links to sites with romanization tables, linguistic information, and language-learning and dictionary resources. From the Library of Congress.

Language Web sites:

Mango Languages: http://www.mangolanguages.com/
Free online self-paced language lessons with sound. Teaches Spanish, French, Greek, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Chinaese, Russian, more. Registration required (free).

Word2 Word Language Courses http://www.word2word.com/course.html
Choose the Free Online Language Courses option, then click “Chinese” to see several courses to choose from. Some require registration. Learn pronunciation, common phrases, more.

Mr. O'Shea's Chinese Classes https://people.sunyit.edu/~osheaw/index-chinese.htm
By Michael O'Shea, who teaches Mandarin Chinese classes at ACC.

Other useful travel Web sites:

Insure My Trip http://www.insuremytrip.com/: Travel insurance comparison site.

Bureau of Consular Affairs http://travel.state.gov/ From U.S. State Dept., passport & visa services, embassies, etc. Click Consular Information Sheets and choose China.

For other countries’ travel safety viewpoints, see these governments’ travel advisory links:
- United Kingdom: http://www.fco.gov.uk/
- Australia: http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/
- Canada: http://www.voyage.gc.ca/

Centers for Disease Control http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/default.aspx For health advisories in countries around the world.

Universal Currency Converter: http://www.xe.net/ucc As of Dec., 2007, one U.S. dollar equalled about 7.4 yuan; one yuan equals about 13 cents.

FXCheatSheet: Travelers Currency Cheat Sheet: http://www.oanda.com/converter/travel Site offers wallet-sized conversion tables: yuan to dollar; dollar to yuan.

Weather around the World http://www.intellicast.com/ Search for weather in Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an.

Google http://www.google.com This large search engine does not evaluate the quality of sites. Use the “Advanced Search” option to search with very specific terms. Limit search to English for best results.

Google Directory: China http://directory.google.com/Top/Regional/Asia/China/ For general, unevaluated links to country information about China: newspapers, TV, radio stations; business, government, weather, much more.

International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/ Search by “China” or other subject and sort by publication date for latest news in English.

Online Newspapers: http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/ Choose Chinese papers from "Asia" menu. For online newspapers from China. Some such as "China Daily" are in English. Chinese characters may not display without installing a language pack.

Created Dec., 2007 by Joyce Miller; updated July 2008