For information on printed guides to regional sources, see the Regional Guides in the Our Collections section of our website.

Chinese Maritime Customs Project

A collaborative project between Bristol and Cambridge Universities and the Second Historical Archives of China in Nanjing (SHAC), focussing on the historical role of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service. The project includes the creation of a catalogue of the 55,000 files that make up the archives of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service held at the SHAC. Significant collections relating to Chinese Maritime Customs are also held at SOAS: see in particular the descriptions of the Bowra, Hart and Maze collections in our A-Z List of collections.

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/History/Customs/index.htm

Japanese Historical Maps

Over 1,100 of the maps held by the East Asian Library of the University of California (Berkeley) have been digitised and made available on this website. Images can be searched for by keywords, region and author. A brief description accompanies each thumbnail image.

http://www.davidrumsey.com/japan/

Mapping Asia (UK Libraries)

Contains information on the resources (including newspapers) held in university, special and public libraries relating to Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Searches can be conducted by country or by free text on library collections or newspaper holdings.

http://www.asiamap.ac.uk/index.php

Swahili Manuscripts Database

A comprehensive catalogue of the Swahili manuscripts held here in Special Collections at SOAS. The collection includes the papers of William Taylor, Alice Werner, William Hichens, Wilfred Whiteley, Jan Knappert and Yahya Ali Omar. It is possible to search the database by collection, reference or free text search.

http://swahilimanuscripts.soas.ac.uk/

Visualising China Project

Visualising China is a web-based resource that allows users to explore more than 8000 digitised images of historical photographs of China taken between 1850 and 1950. Funded by the JISC, Visualising China builds on recent digitisation work undertaken by the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Bristol. The project allows access to many previously unseen albums, envelopes and private collections and also major collections such as Historical Photographs of China, the Sir Robert Hart Collection and Joseph Needham's Photographs of Wartime China.

http://visualisingchina.net/

Centre for Research Libraries (USA)

This institution holds a significant amount of material on South and South-east Asia. Their site includes the Digital South Asia Library which is an on-line catalogue of the Centre’s maps, photographs, publications, etc for this region and also contains images of some of their holdings. The Centre also holds microfiche copies of some missionary collections, e.g. the (Wesleyan) Methodist Missionary Society.

http://www.crl.edu/

National Library of Australia (Asian materials)

On-line catalogue to the resources on Asia held by the National Library of Australia. There are links to their language collections, regional collections and formed collections. Free text search option also available.

http://www.nla.gov.au/asian

Digital South Asia Library

an on-line catalogue of the Centre’s maps, photographs, publications, etc for this region and also contains images of some of their holdings

http://dsal.uchicago.edu/