The APABI Digital Library contains a collection of books, newspapers and reference material in Chinese.
If you can search in Chinese, please select “IP” under the account registration box.
You can search in English: select English from the top right corner. Then login using “IP Sign in”
This trial is valid on-campus only and will last until April 14, 2011.
Please comment below or let me know what your thoughts are on this database.
From Jin Ma:
The ApabiReader needs to be installed to read the ebooks in this database with a much faster speed and nice page navigation. The download link is available at the upper right corner of the page.
Will the IP sign-in system be permanent? I imagine users will not know what to do and will probably get hung up on the username/password path instead of clicking “IP signin.” If your library actually subscribes and you set up IP authentication in EZ proxy, does access then look no different than any other database? If the system requires users first create their own personal account, that would be a strike against it for me.
I’m not sure I really understand this database’s content, as I selected the English search interface and found books in English (such as An Introduction to American History. I had expected the books to be in Chinese. Are some in Chinese? Are all in Chinese but English versions are also available? Knowing more about the content would help me get a better sense of which student/faculty populations this database is targeted to.
I tried the “DownLoad to Mobile” option was distressed to see that it wouldn’t work in Firefox (it asked me to use Internet Explorer only). The same error message popped up for the “Borrow” and “Download to UKey” options (it isn’t clear what exactly that last option is about). Online browsing does work in Firefox, though.
If reader software has to be downloaded and installed to improve the reading experience, I’d say that would be another mark against this database. We’d have to install the software on all public PCs and laptops we loan and also hope that students using the database notice the option when they use their personal computers.
I would work to have it set up differently if we do subscribe because I agree it is confusing as it is.
Although there are some titles in English (not sure about the percentage), the database is mostly Chinese e-books, both current and historical, fine arts, and more than 80% of Chinese newspapers.
More title specific information can be found here