Hu Shih Archive Retrieval System

Dr. Hu Shih was one of the most influential persons in modern China. Before his death, he handed over a great many letters, a diary, articles, and many other public and private documents all of which the Hu Shih Memorial Hall (Academia Sinica) has preserved as part of the archive. The majority of these documents are post-1949 articles, manuscripts, and letters Dr. Hu wrote while residing in the United States and which he brought back with him upon his return to Taiwan in 1958 as well as documents written after 1958 when Dr. Hu resided in Taiwan.

The digitization of the Hu Shih archive began at the end of 2000 and continued with the outsourcing of file scanning operations, the set up and installation of an electronic catalog text format and catalog, as well as the Web introduction of the Hu Shih Archive MetaData Database. At its inception the database service system was divided into two types: the Hu Shi Diary Search System and the Hu Shi Archive Search System, which had different entry formats. After the completion of the digitization and reorganization of the archives, in June of 2007 both systems were completely incorporated into the Hu Shih Archive Retrieval System with unified entry format. In 2009, after some adjustments and added supplementation, the original Hu Shih Diary catalog was added to the Hu Shih Archive Retrieval System and reached a total of 21,180 searches. In April of 2009, the Beijing Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Institute of Modern History donated a cache of pre-1949 Hu Shih archival image data to the Hu Shih Memorial Hall. After reorganization, a total of 30,809 documents were added to the catalog and named the “Beijing Archive” series. In April of 2011, these were incorporated into the Hu Shih Archive Retrieval System, increasing the searches to 51,989. The “Beijing Archive” is limited to open searches of the catalog. Image retrieval is limited to searches carried out at the Institute of Modern History (Academia Sinica). If persons outside the Institute need to use this, they must first come to the Institute’s archive reading room and sign in to carry out searches on our designated individual computer, which is not connected to the internet.

(From the original website.)