Introduction to THDL Reference

Reference is the equivalent of a reference room in a traditional library, where users can find bibliographical references, consult dictionaries and so forth. It contains standard reference resources including bibliographies, encyclopedias, dictionaries, gazetteer, web links to other digital resources, timelines, and rosters of contemporary people and organizations involved in the field. The reference resources will be fully integrated with the collections, so that users at any point within the Library can look up a term, person, place or movement. All reference resources incorporate diverse media and allow for contributions at both the extremely granular and extremely detailed levels. In addition, each resource is searchable by multiple criteria. The resources are all collaboratively built by international teams of scholars over the Web and are continuously updated and expanded. Thus each area – dictionaries, bibliographies, and so forth – consists of multiple components and projects managed by different scholars and librarians. For example, the bibliographies section has a series of thematic bibliographies that can be viewed separately or in an integrated fashion.

There are seven primary reference resources:

• (i) Bibliographies
• (ii) Encyclopedias
• (iii) Dictionaries
• (iv) People
• (v) Groups
• (vi) Places
• (vii) Time

This collection of electronic reference resources has been developed with an eye toward balancing the power of the latest technology against the need to reach the broadest possible audience.

 

Bibliographical resources are delivered in an online system that allows various scholars and librarians to manage individual subjects.

Browse • Search • Home • Help

 

The Encyclopedia project consists of essay-length studies of subjects grouped into different classes, such as terms, individuals, places, movements, and organizations.

 

The Dictionary is an online lexical resource for colloquial and literary Tibetan language. It aims to provide detailed documentation of the historical occurrence of terms in diverse texts and contexts along the lines of the Oxford English Dictionary.

 

The People section provides users with an interactive roster of the community of scholars, students, librarians, and archivists in the field. These rosters include searchable information about the scholarly activities and publications of these persons.

 

Groups provides users with a searchable interactive roster of historical and contemporary clans, monasteries, foundations, projects, and other groups, institutions, and organizations.

The Places section provides place-based access to a rich array of maps, ethnography, historical research, social data, environmental data and multimedia that are searchable by multiple criteria.

 

The Time section provides timelines and chronologies – from the ancient to the modern – related to Tibet and the Himalayas.