Digital Archives
These sites contain archives of texts, images, maps, videos, and other material that are useful in teaching about Asia. Some sites also curate collections of these materials with pedagogical suggestions and guidance. The online resources below are in alphabetical order and include both country-specific and regional collections.
Asian Pacific American Center at the Smithsonian Institute
Established in 1997 the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center has aimed to enrich the American Story with the voices of Asian Pacific Americans. The website includes lectures, ‘Culture Labs’, blogs, online exhibitions, and more.
Creative Voices of Muslim Asia
Asia Society’s website featuring videos of Muslim Asian artist performances, roundtables, and background essays.
A Fordham University collection of primary and secondary texts, maps, images, digital media, and websites on East Asian history. Links are categorized based on their Ancient, Medieval, and Modern content. Used by some as an alternative to standard history textbooks and anthologies.
Japan Disasters Digital Archives
Catalogues archived digital materials related to Japan’s disasters, begun after the triple-disaster of 2011. Allows users to create curated collections and interactive presentations on topics of interest to them. The archive also features an innovative map feature that visualizes all materials that are tagged with geographic information in real time.
The Japan Foundation is Japan’s only institution dedicated to carrying out comprehensive international cultural exchange programs throughout the world. With the objective of deepening mutual understanding between the people of Japan and other countries/regions, our various activities and information services create opportunities for people-to-people interactions.
Japan Society Multimedia Archives
Collections of webcasts, webinars, lectures, and lessons, with special focus on arts, culture, society, business, and policy.
Catalogues Japan scholar Joanne Bernardi’s collection of everyday objects in a wide range of media. Most of the objects in the collection are common use items; they all document personal experience, cross-cultural encounters, and changing representations of Japan and its place in the world in the early to mid 20th century.
Southeast Asian Images & Texts
This Northern Illinois Digital Collection brings together, in digital form, two categories of primary and secondary resources: research and teaching materials collected; and unique or valuable items related to these fields held by their libraries.
Tibetan and Himalayan Library (THL)
The Tibetan and Himalayan Library publishes websites, resources, and networking facilities relating to Tibet and the Himalayan regions. Created at the University of Virginia in conjunction with the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities.
Buddhist Digital Resource Center
Originally the Tibetan Buddhist Resources Center, housing a searchable, comprehensive catalogue and a large collection of Tibetan Buddhist texts, now expanded to include Buddhist texts in other Asian languages.
Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon
The University of the West project to gather, digitize and distribute the original Sanskrit scriptures of the Buddhist faith. Begun in 2003 in collaboration with the Nagarjuna Institute in Kathmandu, Nepal, the texts are organized for a variety of teaching modes.
