The UK Union Catalogue of Chinese Books has temporarily been withdrawn to comply with the University of Oxford’s security policies. We are looking into whether these issues can be resolved, and will update this page with further information once we have been able to investigate fully.

To aid in the transition away from this service, we are continuing to make the old search interface available for a limited time. Readers are asked to seek alternatives to this service, and may contact the K.B. Chen China Centre Library for assistance.

An archived version of the site is available via Bodleian Libraries’ Web Archive, which describes the background of the Union Catalogue: https://wayback.archive-it.org/org-467/20190828081222/http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/rslpchin/

For any questions about the Union Catalogue website contact digitalsupport@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

For other information about Bodleian Libraries’ Chinese collections contact the K.B. Chen China Centre Library: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ccl

Preface from the original site

Following the successful completion in August 2002 of a project funded by the Research Support Libraries Programme, there now exists a UK Union Catalogue of Chinese Books containing records from the British Library, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, Leeds, Oxford and SOAS. Particular attention has been paid to the development of a simple and intuitive search interface, enabling readers to gain rapid access to the required information through the entry of minimal search terms.

The entire thrust of the project has been to produce an original script catalogue in the truest sense, and to keep romanisation to a minimum. However, a large number of romanised records from Cambridge University Library have been included, so it is recommended that for the time being searching should be done in both original script and romanisation to ensure a reliable result. As the Cambridge records are upgraded, the need for this will diminish.

During the course of the project, great attention was paid to setting up procedures for ensuring that it would be simple and inexpensive to maintain the database once the RSLP funding had ceased. Accordingly, since its completion all the participants have continued to contribute their current cataloguing work, which is regularly incorporated into the database. But needless to say, the Union Catalogue, like any other, supplements rather than replaces the catalogues of the participating institutions, which at any given time will usually be more complete. Furthermore, there are many smaller collections that are not currently included. The absence of a work in the Union Catalogue does not therefore mean that it is not held somewhere in the UK.

David Helliwell
Oxford
30 March 2007