Digital Collection

Access to the various digitised collections of sources in the context of the special collection area East and Southeast Asia:

  1. Historical Mongolian Maps
    from the late Qing Period: The Berlin collection of 181 mongolian manuscript maps digitised here are accompanied by the descriptions taken from volume one of the "Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland" reproduced with kind permission of the Franz Steiner Verlag.

  2. The „Battle Copper Prints“
    of the Qianlong 乾隆 (1736-1795) Emperor: The East Asia collection of the Berlin State Library includes five series of altogether 64 prints of so called "battle copper engravings". The copper plates to these prints were produced by order of the Qianlong emperor of the Qing dynasty to illustrate and glorify his military campaigns. They are unique from the perspective of art history and represent an important document of self-portrayal of Manju power in the Chinese empire.

  3. Dictionary of Japanese Students in Germany 1868-1914
    The online dictionary by Dr. Rudolf Hartmann comprises information (dates, university, field of study etc.) about 2700 Japanese persons that came to Germany between 1868 and 1914 after the opening of Japan in the course of the modernisation process in order to study here.

  4. Lao Manuscripts: The Digital Library of Lao Manuscripts (DLLM) makes images of almost 12,000 texts from throughout Laos easily accessible for study, together with related information and resources. Collaborating institutions are the National Library of Laos, the University of Passau, and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz. The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

  5. SSG 6,25 Digital (ongoing project): The East Asia Department of the Berlin State Library has started to digitise selected parts of its holdings. The project is co-funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and encompasses five sections with materials in original languages: the Tibetan text collection of Waddell, one of the pioneers of Tibetology, the Manchu collection, the old Japan collection (Libri japonici), the old China collection (Libri sinici) and the collection of the German Sinologist Hänisch. As a sixth part about 4000 titles of western language sources related to East and Southeast Asia published until 1912 will be digitised. Parts of the collections will be made searchable down to the chapter level. First results of the Western material can already be browsed and searched in the viewing environment of the "Digital collections" of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.