Description: This search engine is based on 3,702 library catalog records, derived from the electronic card catalog system of Harvard Yenching Library. This is only a subset of the difangzhi collection, which amounts to more than 10,000 volumes. At present, this search engine is only able to sort the records by call numbers based on Dr. Kaiming Chiu's classification system, which assigns specific ranges of call numbers to Chinese Provinces. The provinces defined in the Chiu system do not precisely match contemporary provinces in area, so searches for items that are in present-day Heilongjiang, might be listed under Jilin in this index.
Whithin the limitations stated above, we hope that you will find this search engine a simple and efficient way to get a rough idea of the difangzhi holdings in the Harvard Yenching Library. Unfortunately, due to the design of the Library of Congress classification system, we cannot add the remaining 6,000 volumes that were given LOC call numbers into this search engine. Nonetheless we hope that the convenience of finding items with this search engine will be of use to scholars and will provide them with correct titles and spellings for searching with Hollis.