Find Chinese materials with Chinese characters
1. Searching by romanization is still the most effective and reliable way to find Chinese-language materials in SearchWorks. Everyone searching for Chinese materials still needs to be familiar with Pinyin romanization rules.
2. Simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese are inter-searchable. For example, using the simplified characters 张爱玲 for an author search, SearchWorks will retrieve records with both 张爱玲 and 張愛玲 as the author.
3. Each Chinese character is indexed as a single word in SearchWorks. No space is needed between characters.
4. For a more precise search, double quotation marks can be used for phrase or term search. For example, “当代中国经济” in the keyword search query, records with exact phrases will be retrieved. 当代“中国经济” as the search query, Term 1 is 中国经济, term 2 is 当代. SearchWorks will retrieve records where "中国经济" appears as a phrase and 当代 appears anywhere in the record. Records with term 1 and term 2 in the same field will be ranked the highest. Please note, when you use double quotation marks “ ”, you have to switch input mode to English. Currently, Chinese-style quotation marks “ ” will not work.
5. For some technical and historical reasons, a small number of characters with variant forms, for example 研 and 硏, 戱and 戏, 緖 and绪, etc., require extra mapping and are not inter-searchable. Search by romanization if no results or limited results are returned.
6. When Chinese character searches result in a mix of Japanese, Chinese and Korean language records, you can limit the search to Chinese records by selecting Chinese from the language field under “Limit Your Result” on the left.
If you have questions or need assistance with Chinese-language searching in SearchWorks, please contact the Chinese Studies Librarian, Zhaohui Xue or 650-388-8295.
Find Chinese materials in Pinyin
A. Which romanization system to use
The Pinyin system has replaced the Wade-Giles system as the standard in libraries in North America for creating romanized readings for Chinese characters. The means, in general, library users must search in Pinyin to find Chinese language materials, regardless of publishing locations.
There are two exceptions:
1. Place names. Place names in Taiwan used as suject or as headings for government or geographical entities remain in Wade-Giles, although they are in Pinyin when appearing in title, imprint, and other fields of the records. For example, 台中市 as subject heading is "T ' ai-chung shih", but "Taizhong shi" in the title of a Chinese-language book; 高雄 as subject heading is "Kao-hsiung", but "Gaoxiong" in the title.
2. Personel names. Those Chinese names in Wade-Giles that have been well established are not converted to Pinyin, such as 蒋经国 Chiang Cing-kuo and 李登辉 Lee Teng-hui.
B. How to enter search terms in Pinyin to search Chinese materials
In general, enter the romanization of each Chinese charater with a space, such as 明清小说比较研究 ming qing xiao shuo bi jiao yan jiu.
However, there are certain situations where you need to join syllables.
1. Join syllables for multi-character surnames and given names. Also join syllables for given names, Buddhist names, courtesy names, etc.,
刘少奇 liu shaoqi
欧阳修 ouyang xiu
司马相如 sima siangru
尼克松 nikesen
梧岗主人 wugangzhuren
孔子 kongzi
2. Join syllables for multi-character geographic names. Do not join the generic terms for geographical features or jurisdictions.
中华人民共和国 zhonghua renmin gongheguo
新疆维吾尔自治区 xinjiang weiwuer zizhiqu
台湾省立博物馆 taiwan sheng li bo wu guan
义县 yi xian
海南岛 hainan dao
太平洋 taiping yang
3. For names of countries, join syllables according to the practice followed by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.
中华人民共和国 zhonghua renmin gongheguo
中华民国 zhonghua minguo
朝鲜民主主义主义人民共和国 chaoxian minzhu zhuyi renmin gongheguo
4. Join syllables for names of racial, linguistic, or ethnic groups.
基督徒 jidu tu
毛南族 maonan zu
美国人 meiguo ren
The ALA-LC Romanization Table for Chinese contains details on when to join or separate syllables when you enter Pinyin to search for Chinese materials. You may need to familiar yourself with it in order to do effective and efficient search.
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