Searching Chinese Language Materials

1. The Library of Congress romanization rules, based on the Chinese pin-yin system (with exceptions) must be used for accurate and complete search results.  See

2. Search each Romanized character separately, except for place names and first names of persons.

Examples of exceptions:

中国文化 = Zhongguo wen hua
中华人民共和国 = Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo
中華民國 = Zhonghua Mingu
台湾社会 = Taiwan she hui
广东省 = Guangdong Sheng
孙中山 = Sun Zhongshan
胡适 = Hu Shi

3. If searching by Chinese characters, repeat the search in both Traditional (繁體字) and Simplified (简体字) characters, because the bibliographic data are entered based on the scripts used in the publications.  Applying a space in-between words or phrases might be necessary because some older records were created with extra spaces inserted.

4. Although some Chinese journal articles included in subscribed journal article databases can be found in CLIO, for complete results, individual Chinese journal-article databases should be searched instead.

5. For characters with multiple pronunciations, it may be necessary to try all possibilities to ensure a more complete search result.  For example, the character “的” used to be romanized as “di” and may still exist in older records in that form.  Searching both “de” and “di” is important for a complete result.

6. For more detailed instructions and suggestions check the Chinese Studies homepage at or ask the Chinese Studies Librarian, Chengzhi Wang (



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