* tmc * in patientia vestra habetis animam vestram * tmc *

Dear Reader,

The ASIAN STUDIES WWW MONITOR
(including all its subsidiary (and/or sister) pages on "coombs.anu.edu.au" server) has permanently ceased its publishing operations on Friday 21st January 2011.

All of the online resources reported here have been thoroughly checked at the time of their listing. However, it is possible that, with the with the passage of time, many of the originally reported materials might have been removed from the Internet, or changed their online address, or varied the scope and quality of their contents.

Fortunately, in several cases it is possible to access many of the older versions of the resources listed in the MONITOR. This can be easily done via the free services of the "The Internet Archive" http://web.archive.org/, a remarkable brainchild of Brewster Kahle, San Francisco, CA.

- with warm regards -

Editor, Dr T. Matthew Ciolek.

Canberra, 21 January 2011.


28 April 2005

China Historical GIS, Version 3

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~chgis/

5star
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, US

Supplied note:
"CHGIS China Historical Geographic Information System. New Release of Version 3 Datasets (April 2005)
We are pleased to announce the release of the China Historical GIS - Version 3, providing a fully documented database of historical administrative units in China.
The new datasets may be accessed directly on our website using a search engine for specific placenames, or the individual GIS layers may be downloaded free of charge for academic use.
Contents of the new release include:
a) Time Series datasets (from 222 BCE to 1911 CE) for the region covered by modern Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong, and Hunan. b) Datasets for the Qing Dynasty as of circa 1820. c) Datasets as of circa 1911 for the region covered by Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi, Gansu, and all but the northern reaches of Shanxi and Zhili. d) 1990 CITAS data (Provinces, Prefectures, and Counties) joined with basic census statistics. e) Frontier Regions datasets (circa 1875 - 1900) covering areas in Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, as digitized from Russian historical maps. f) Topographic background images, processed from remote sensing Digital Elevation Models. g) Digital Scans of Southwest China Maps by Joseph Rock.
The complete contents of the datasets listed above are available for free download by registering your name, institution and email address at [the URL below] A CD-ROM will be published in Summer 2005 and will be available for $7.50 from Cheng & Tsui Company (www.cheng-tsui.com).
Placenames may also be looked up using our simple online search engine, which requires no registration or special software. Currently online you will find the CHGIS Placename Index, Japan Placename Index, Tan Historical Atlas of China Index, and an East Asian Geographic Feature Type Index.
The next projected release of CHGIS data is expected to be in 2006. It is expected to complete the coverage of 1911 county boundaries to include the Southwest and Northeast and to complete the extension of the historical time series (222 BCE to 1911 CE) to cover the same area.
Editors:
Peter K. Bol [pkbol@fas.harvard.edu] and Jianxiong Ge. Executive Editors: Merrick Lex Berman [mberman@fas.harvard.edu] and Zhimin Man - mlb."

Note:
The CHGIS project has been established in Dec 2000 under the aegis of the Harvard-Yenching Institute and Harvard University. The CHGIS develops a standardized coding system to identify historical administrative units and settlements for different periods in Chinese History. It provides a GIS platform for spatial analysis, temporal statistical modeling, and representation of selected historical units as digital maps. The project, which builds on the work of the late Robert M. Hartwell, intends to make the multi-lingual base GIS available to the scholarly community at no charge through download sites throughout the world. - ed.

URL
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~chgis/

Internet Archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.fas.harvard.edu/~chgis/

Link reported by:
Merrick Lex Berman (mberman@fas.harvard.edu), via chgis@fas.harvard.edu

* Resource type [news - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]:
Study/Documents

* Publisher [academic - business - government - library - NGO - other]:
Academic

* Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]:
Essential

* External links to the resource [over 3,000 - under 3,000 - under 1,000 - under 300 - under 100 - under 30]:
under 300

Please note that the above details were correct on 13 October 2005. To suggest an update, please email the site's editor at tmciolek@ciolek.com

17 April 2005

South Central China and Tibet: Hotspot of Diversity - Map and Gazetteer

http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/library/tibet/map.html

4star
Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, US.

Self-description:
"Joseph Rock traced his travels for the Arboretum's 1924-1927 expedition in a colorful, hand-drawn map entitled 'Ch'ing-Hai upper Yellow River expedition.' The pen-and-ink drawing was made on ten sheets that when joined form a single, irregularly-shaped map, approximately six by eight feet in size. [...] A gazetteer that references the map and the index is now available as a searchable database."

URL
http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/library/tibet/map.html

Internet Archive
http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.arboretum.harvard.edu/library/tibet/map.html

Link reported by:
Dan Martin (msyben@mscc.huji.ac.il)

* Resource type [news - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]:
Documents/Study

* Publisher [academic - business - govt. - library/museum - NGO - other]:
Academic

* Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]:
V.Useful

* External links to the resource [over 3,000 - under 3,000 - under 1,000 - under 300 - under 100 - under 30]:
under 30

Please note that the above details were correct on 13 October 2005. To suggest an update, please email the site's editor at tmciolek@ciolek.com

15 April 2005

Southeast Asia in the Ming Shi-lu: an open access resource

http://www.epress.nus.edu.sg/msl/

5star
Asia Research Institute and the Singapore E-Press, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Supplied note:
"Southeast Asia in the Ming Reign Chronicles (14th-17th Centuries): An English-language translation of Ming shi-lu references to Southeast Asia by Geoff Wade, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. [...] The Ming shi-lu (also known as the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty) is a collective name for the successive reign annals of the emperors of Ming China (1368-1644). These collected texts, which run to close to 40,000 pages of unpunctuated, manuscript Classical Chinese constitute one of the most important primary texts of the Ming dynasty, and contain a wealth of materials unrecorded in other sources.

Among the unique materials contained within the Ming shi-lu (MSL) are a wide range of references to polities and societies which today we consider to be parts of 'Southeast Asia'. This work identifies all of the 4,000-plus references to Southeast Asia contained within the MSL and provides them to readers in English-language translation. In addition to the more obvious Southeast Asian polities of maritime and mainland Southeast Asia, this database also includes references to the many Yunnan Tai polities which have subsequently been incorporated within the Chinese state.
The collection can be browsed chronologically or searched by specific terms. To assist in searches, an index of personal and geographical names, with their Chinese equivalents appended, is provided separately. - gw."

Site contents:
* About this source; * Browse by year; * Browse by reign; * Place names; * Personal names; * Search.

URL
http://www.epress.nus.edu.sg/msl/

Internet Archive (www.archive.org)
[the site was not archived at the time of this abstract.]

Link reported by:
Geoff Wade (arigpw@nus.edu.sg), forwarded by h-asia@h-net.msu.edu

* Resource type [news - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]:
Documents/Study

* Publisher [academic - business - govt. - library/museum - NGO - other]:
Academic

* Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]:
Essential

* External links to the resource [over 3,000 - under 3,000 - under 1,000 - under 300 - under 100 - under 30]:
under 30

Please note that the above details were correct on 13 October 2005. To suggest an update, please email the site's editor at tmciolek@ciolek.com