With the print collections unavailable while the libraries remain closed, we are all working hard to assist you remotely, and to make more electronic resources available. Your Libraries Online summarizes all the various ways the Libraries offer these online services. The Starr Library collection development librarians are, of course, doing their part too. We try to identify e-editions of urgently needed book titles, and work diligently to expedite the addition of new databases as well. As of today, April 1, 2020, the following new database has become available:

Diplomacy and Political Secrets, part of China and the Modern World. It comprises a collection of China-related records, selected from three sections of a series called “The India Office Records” held at the British Library. It comes in the form of notes, accounts, reports, correspondence, intelligence diaries, schemes, memoranda, pamphlets, handbooks, gazetteers, and maps, and reflects the security concerns of British India. The frontier regions of China bordering British India were considered of strategic importance, which is also why a large amount of material coming from Xinjiang, Tibet and Yunnan were collected by the Political and Secret Department of the India Office, Military Department, and the Burma Office. The records also exhibit the India Office’s interest in China’s developments in various aspects after 1910, and the cooperation between China and Britain during WWII. Included also are official accounts of border disputes and negotiations involving China, India, Britain, Burma, Russia/Soviet Union, Pakistan and some other Central Asian countries. This database complements other databases already owned by Columbia, such as Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980. As with all paid e-resources, log in with your UNI and password for access.