Guide to SEA Resources

I. Introduction

For a few students, conducting research is a relatively straight-forward endeavor. Others may find it an especially daunting and arduous undertaking. The study of Southeast Asia poses a number of unique challenges, not least of which is the paucity of secondary source materials and helpful research aids. This resource is not intended as a general guide to library research, for others have adequately covered that topic (See, for example, Ohio University Libraries' BOLT tutorial for general guidance). It is designed with the varied needs of Ohio University students in mind, but particularly those engaged in the study of Southeast Asia. Its objective is to assist students in locating and utilizing effectively available sources (i.e. print, electronic, microfilm, etc.) relevant to the study of Southeast Asia.

II. Determining the scale and scope of one's research

As with any venture, conducting effective research requires setting realistic goals and identifying the proper tools essential to the task at hand. Thus, before undertaking research on a topic of interest, it is essential to give some consideration to the quantity, type, and format of materials one will need to complete the task. For example:

1. What is the scale or scope of the project? (i.e. a fifteen-minute oral presentation, a twenty page paper, a thesis, etc.).
2. What types of resources will you require? (e.g. newspaper articles, books, journal articles, conference proceedings, trade publications, statistical reports, etc.). Will you need to include primary sources (i.e. newspaper articles, interviews, government documents, etc.) or secondary source materials (i.e. books, encyclopedias, journal articles, etc.), or a combination of the two?
3. Will you be using a variety of formats? (i.e. visual, audio, print, electronic).

III. Collecting source materials

Once one has determined the scale or scope of his or her research project, and identified the type and format of the materials he or she will need, it is time to embark on the task of searching for the necessary source materials to carry out one's research. The following aims at helping students to identify the various types of sources available and the means by which they may be obtained.

A. Library Catalogues

ALICE, Ohio University library's online catalogue, is the obvious place to start. ALICE serves as a gateway for finding books, periodicals, video and sound recordings, maps, government documents, and much more.

One can search ALICE in various ways: by author, title, subject heading, keyword, call number, or ISBN/ISSN number. (For useful tips on how to conduct effective subject and keyword searches, refer to Ohio University Libraries' BOLT Tutorial). One can also limit his or her search by indicating a preference for language, material type, location, date, and/or publisher.

Note: individual periodical articles do not appear in ALICE. Nor can one search for articles by entering in the author's name or individual article title. Only the titles of periodicals are catalogued in ALICE. For information on how to search for individual periodical articles, refer to the section entitled 'databases, bibliographies, and other useful research tools').

The complete holdings of the Southeast Asia collection at Ohio University may be searched via ALICE. The SEA collection is of sufficient depth and breadth to support the varied research interests of most students and faculty. However, no collection can be fully comprehensive. Thus, in some instances researchers may find it necessary to search other (or multiple) electronic library catalogues and request the item or items through OhioLINK or interlibrary loan, both of which are very effective and easy to use.

OhioLINK is a consortium made up of more than 80 public and private university libraries in Ohio, as well as the State Library of Ohio. OhioLINK offers six main electronic services: a library catalogue, research databases, a multi-publisher electronic journal center, a digital media center, E-books, and an electronic theses and dissertations center. OhioLINK provides students and faculty at Ohio University with access to more than 44 million library materials.

Interlibrary loan is a service provided to students and faculty at Ohio University. With links to over 5,000 major research libraries and document supply centers worldwide, interlibrary loan is designed to assist Alden Library patrons in locating and borrowing critical library resources not available at Ohio University libraries or OhioLINK. Requests for interlibrary loan materials and document delivery may be submitted electronically via ILLiad, a web-based platform accessible from the Ohio University libraries home page.

How to use interlibrary loan effectively

To assist the Alden Library staff in handling interlibrary loan requests, it is essential to provide them with a complete citation whenever possible(i.e. author(s)/editor(s), title, edition, publisher, place of publication, date of publication, and ISBN number). It is also helpful to provide the interlibrary loan staff with the name or names of the institutions that own the title(s) requested. This information may be obtained through Worldcat.

Worldcat is an international database containing bibliographic records (citations only) for tens of millions of books, periodicals, audio-visual materials, archival sources, and so forth. Worldcat is not a library. It is a central depository of bibliographic records (drawn from hundreds of university library catalogs in North America and Europe) created to assist researchers in identifying and locating key source materials.

The Center For Research Libraries (CRL) is another possible option. CRL is a consortium of North American universities, colleges and independent research libraries. The consortium acquires and preserves newspapers, journals, documents, archives and other traditional and digital resources for research and teaching. These resources are then made available to member institutions cooperatively, including Ohio University, through interlibrary loan and electronic delivery.

In addition to Worldcat and CRL, researchers may want to search other university library catalogues. For a list of university libraries in the United States and abroad with substantial Southeast Asia holdings, click on the following link: "Major Library Collections."

Note: students and faculty cannot request materials directly from other university libraries. Requests must be made through inter-library loan or OhioLINK.

B. Databases, bibliographies, and other useful research tools

The SEA Collection staff has compiled a select list of databases, bibliographies and other helpful research tools to assist students and faculty in locating key source materials relevant to the study of Southeast Asia (For direct access, refer to the SEA Collection home page). Note, too, that all databases listed here may be accessed via Infotree, a searchable index of all electronic resources paid for or supported by Ohio University libraries and OhioLINK, located on the Ohio University Libraries homepage.

1. Electronic Databases (indexes)

   There are two basic types of databases: general and subject databases. General databases index articles and book chapters (and sometimes books, conference proceedings, and dissertations) covering a wide-range of topics and disciplines. General databases also tend to incorporate popular as well as scholarly publications. A good example of a general database is Academic Search Complete, a full-text article database covering a broad range of academic disciplines and numerous areas of study. Subject databases are more specialized, and oftentimes more scholarly. For instance, the Skeletal Database, a key feature of the Southeast Asian Archaeology Scholarly Web Site, indexes publications specific to the study of Southeast Asian archaeology and anthropology.

   Databases vary in at least one other respect. Some provide citations only. Others provide abstracts. Others still provide full-text articles and reviews, as well as various other formats.

   Why use an electronic database?

   Electronic databases allow researchers to quickly and efficiently scan millions of pages of text or bibliographical citations sources directly related to one's topic of interest. Second, unlike most library catalogues, electronic databases typically index specific periodical articles (by title and/or author). Thus, one need not scan each issue of every periodical to find articles on his or her topic.

   So what are the core databases?

   Lexis-Nexis Academic is a full-text article database covering a broad range of international and domestic current events, business news, and medical and legal reference materials. Of special note is the "guided news search" function which enables researchers to scan and download full-text articles, current and archival, from international, national and regional newspapers, and domestic and international wire services. Lexis-Nexis' coverage of Southeast Asian English-language newspapers and press summaries is reasonably good. The following table contains a partial list of SEA newspapers and press reports available through Lexis-Nexis:

   Brunei	Borneo Bulletin	1997-present
   Cambodia	Cambodia Today	July-Sept. 1997
   Indonesia	Antara Jakarta Post	1997-present1997-present
   Malaysia	New Straits Times Business Times Bernama: Malaysian National News Agency The Edge (Malaysia) Malaysia Economic News Malaysian Business Star	1996-present 1995-present July 1997-present Nov. 1997-present Jan. 1998-present Jan. 1995-present Jan. 1998-present
   Philippines	Manila Standard philippine daily inquirer Philippine Business Report ECCP Business Review Philippines Monthly Factsheet	1997-present 1999-present 1997 Feb. 1998-present Aug. 1997-1998?
   Singapore	Straits Times The Business Times Singapore The Edge Singapore	1992-present 1992-present May 2002-present
   Thailand	Bangkok Post The Nation Business Day Thai Press Reports	Feb. 1997-2002? 1997-present July 1997-2001? 2002?-present
   Vietnam	Saigon Times Daily Vietnam Economic Times Vietnam Economic News	1997-present Aug. 1997-Mar. 1999 1998-1999?

   For additional Southeast Asian newspaper titles, including retrospective and out-of-print editions, refer to the CRL catalogue.

   Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS) is a leading subject database covering a wide range of topics (with special emphasis on the humanities and social sciences) relevant to the study of East, South, and Southeast Asia. BAS contains over 610,000 citations to Western-language periodical articles, monographs, chapters in edited volumes, conference proceedings, anthologies, etc. published between 1971 and 1991. In addition, a growing number of periodicals (more than 100) published since 1991 have been added to the database in recent years.

   How to use BAS?

   One can search the BAS database by keyword, periodical title, or country-subject. In most cases, the keyword or country-subject search function (or some combination of the two) is likely to produce the best results. It is important to note, however, that the BAS database contains citations only. To take but one representative example, the basic keyword search "Sukarno" will produce, among other citations, the following:

   Author: Adams, Cindy Title: Sukarno my friend Citation: Singapore: Gunung Agung, 1980 322p. Subjects: Indonesia-Biography

   The citation field-"Singapore: Gunung Agung, 1980 322p."-suggests that this is a monograph. (The number of pages, 322 in this case, is often a good indicator). To locate a copy of this monograph, one may search ALICE using either the author's name or the title of the book.

   Author: Brands, H.W. Title: The limits of manipulation: how the United States didn't topple Sukarno Citation: Journal of American History (Bloomington, IN) 76, no.3 (Dec 1989) 785-808 Subjects: Indonesia-Politics & Government-International Relations-United States

   Here the citation field clearly indicates that this is a journal article. (In some cases, especially when the title does not include the term "journal," the number of pages, or the use of such terms as "volume" or "no." in the record, are useful to identify a periodical title). To locate a copy of this article, one must first search for the periodical in ALICE (Once again, note that ALICE does not contain records for individual journal articles). Second, provided that OU Libraries owns the periodical in question, which in this case we do, one must find the specific volume and issue in which the article was published, all of which can be discerned from the ALICE record.

   In sum, BAS is a very useful tool for identifying and tracking down source materials pertaining to Asia not otherwise indexed in ALICE.

   Berita is an important bibliographic database specially designed to index monographs, book chapters, journal articles and conference papers pertaining to the study of Brunei, Malaysia, and Singapore, as well as other parts of Southeast Asia. Produced jointly by the staff at the Southeast Asia collection at Ohio University and RMIT Publishing in Australia, the Berita database covers a wide range of topics and disciplines. English and Malay-language resources are given special emphasis. However, some Chinese, Dutch, French, and German-language sources are included as well. One can search the Berita database by keyword and/or publication date (additional limits can be added). The Berita database contains citations only (Once again, to locate a copy of a specific source indexed in Berita one need only conduct a periodical title search, for journals, etc., or a title/author/editor search for monographs, in ALICE or other major library catalogues).

   The Southeast Asian Serials Database, a joint project involving Australian National University and the KITLV Library in the Netherlands, provides bibliographic information (citations only) on articles and reviews from over 100 academic journals with a special focus on Southeast Asia. The Southeast Asian Serials Database can be searched by article title, author, subject, and/or publication date.

   The Southeast Asian Archaeology Bibliographic and Skeletal Databases is a highly specialized, web-based resource intended to disseminate information on the anthropology and archaeology of mainland Southeast Asia. Created by the University of Pennsylvania, the Southeast Asian Archaeology Bibliographic and Skeletal Databases has two components: an electronic database containing well over 4000 references to sources pertaining to Southeast Asian archaeology and anthropology, and a skeletal database, featuring detailed bio-archaeological data (mainly from human remains) collected by archaeologists at the Ban Chiang excavation site in northeastern Thailand.

   The databases described here are only a few examples of the wide variety of electronic resources available to researchers. For a more comprehensive listing of databases relevant to the study of Southeast Asia, refer to the SEA homepage or contact the SEA Collection staff.

Bibliographies

Bibliographies are another very useful research tool. The SEA Collection staff has compiled a select but substantial list of subject and country-specific, web-based bibliographies with a special emphasis on Southeast Asian studies. Bibliographies serve a number of purposes. But above all, bibliographies makes it possible for students and faculty alike to gain a better grasp of the extent and nature of the existing scholarship on a given country or subject. In short, they allow one to gain a better awareness of 'what's out there', what topics or time periods (a question historians often pose) have been written about extensively, and what has thus far escaped the attention of scholars. As researchers, faculty or otherwise, these are important points to consider.

One such bibliography, which is particularly useful, is A Sense of History: A Select Bibliography on the History of Singapore. Based on the 1998 print edition, A Sense of History consists of a vast bibliography, amounting to hundreds of citations, of primary and secondary sources on the history of Singapore and Malaysia. All sources are conveniently indexed according to format (primary or secondary source materials) topic and/or time period. Included in this bibliography are Western, Malay, Chinese and Japanese-language sources.

Documents, Journals, etc. From the Period of the VOC, compiled by the Australian National University, amounts to a substantial index of journal articles, official records and books of relevance to the study of the VOC and its historical relationship to the Indonesian archipelago.

An excellent example of a subject bibliography is the Southeast Asian Women's Studies Bibliography. Created by the University of California at Berkeley, this electronic resource amounts to an extensive bibliography of Western and Southeast Asian-language materials of special relevance to research on women's studies in Southeast Asia. The bibliography contains references to sources from all the countries of Southeast Asia.

For a full listing of bibliographies pertaining to the study of Southeast Asia, refer to the SEA Collection homepage.

2. Other Useful Research Tools

   In addition to the aforementioned databases and bibliographies, the SEA Collection staff has compiled a select list of valuable resources that are not so easy to categorize.

   One such resource is Access Asia, an electronic clearinghouse for information on contemporary Asian affairs and policy-related matters. A project of the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), Access Asia features, among other things, a very useful specialist/research database, which enables users to identify individual specialists and various research organizations based on geographic concentration and areas of expertise.

   Another unique resource is Vietnam, Laos, et Cambodge: Sources et aides à la recherche. Compiled by well-known historian Christopher Goscha, this resource includes a select, yet impressive, bibliography, as well as important information on researchers, archives, libraries, and research centers of relevance to the study of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The text is in French.

C. SEA Newspapers

The SEA Collection houses a substantial number of Southeast Asian vernacular and Western-language newspapers. The vast majority of the collection's newspaper holdings are on microfilm (located in the microforms and non-print collection in the north-west corner of the first floor). Microform readers, printers, and scanner(s) are also located in the microform collection). Newspapers (as well as all periodicals) are organized alphabetically. Most newspaper titles are cataloged in ALICE. In addition, the SEA Collection staff has compiled a comprehensive index of all SEA newspapers on microfilm, including dates, and posted it on the SEA Collection homepage.

D. SEA Internet Resources

The SEA Collection staff has compiled a select but substantial index of internet resources of special relevance to the study of Southeast Asia, which may be accessed from the SEA Collection homepage. Categories, as listed in the table of contents, include the following:

1. Business, Economics, and Development
2. Culture and Society
3. Education
4. Geography and Environment
5. Government, Law and Politics
6. History and Archaeology
7. Literature, Language and Lexicography
8. Other/General Websites

The purpose of this selection of internet resources deserves a brief explanation. Some of the resources assembled here provide general information about Southeast Asia. Others are highly specialized. Our aim was to give special emphasis to internet resources of scholarly value, rather than "popular" or non-academic affiliated sites, which are typically less credible. Having said this, it is also important to bear in mind that internet resources are, generally speaking, merely intended to compliment traditional resources (i.e. books, journal and newspaper articles, dissertations, government documents, etc.). The main reason for is, once again, that internet resources, especially those which are not operated or created by an academic institution or organization, may or may not provide credible information. In contrast to journals, which are typically refereed by scholars in the field, or monographs, which are proof read numerous times and edited by established academics or professional editors before going into print, there are no effective safeguards in place to ensure the accuracy of information posted on the internet.

Because the use internet resources can be a risky undertaking, the SEA Collection staff has tried to be especially scrupulous in selecting content for its internet resources page.

What are the key internet resources?

One internet resource worth noting is Batavia: A Virtual Factorij. It includes a vast array of antiquarian maps, brief historical sketches, and extensive, fully-searchable databases on the history of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and its involvement in Asia. In addition, it provides links to a number of important source collections from the Netherlands Historical Data Archive, including: o Dutch Asiatic Shipping, 1595-1795, which contains data on outward and homeward-bound voyages between the Netherlands and the East Indies o the South-Chinese Sea Trade, 1681-1792, which provides facts and figures about the trade between Batavia and China o Indonesian fortune: VOC bills of exchange between Asia and the Dutch Republic, 1690-1720, which contains an inventory of VOC bills of exchange o Textile Trade of the VOC in the 18th century o Demography of Batavia, 1689-1789 o The History of the Banda Islands (Indonesia) o Shipping and trade in Indonesia, especially the origin, Java, 1774-1777 o Diary of Paulus Gevers of his journey to Batavia and Bantam, 1776-1777

Another resource worth mentioning is the Greater Angkor Project (GAP). Directed by the University of Sydney, the École Française d'Extrême Orient (EFEO) and APSARA, the Greater Angkor Project represents the first systematic, integrated approach to the study of Angkor as an urban complex. Using GIS (Geographical Information System), remotely sensed data, computerized mapping applications, 3D imaging and visualization, it is the aim of the GAP to compile and integrate data on the territorial extent, spatial organization and duration of Angkor as a living city-state-all of which are essential to enriching our understanding of Cambodian history.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (E.I.U.) is yet another core electronic resource (paid for by Ohio University Libraries). A leading research and advisory firm, the E.I.U. provides extensive economic and financial data, as well as concise but authoritative information on politics, for all the nations of Southeast Asia (with the exception of East Timor) from the mid-1990s to the present.

For a complete listing of all internet resources compiled by the SEA Collection staff, refer to the SEA Collection homepage.