Introduction

The aim of this project is to provide Tibetologists and other researchers around the world with a searchable database by which they can easily familiarize themselves with secondary research by Tibetologists in the People's Republic of China (PRC). This project serves three objectives: 1) to increase awareness of research being undertaken by scholars in the PRC; 2) to enhance the possibilities for scholarly exchange in the Tibetan academic community; and 3) to encourage the use of the extensive periodical holdings at the Latse Contemporary Tibetan Cultural Library in New York City.

Bya-ra: A Tibetan Research Database was originally compiled in 1998 by three students at Indiana University, Alexandru Anton-Luca, Lauran Hartley, and Pasang Thackchhoe, in collaboration with E. Gene Smith, Susan Meinheit of the Library of Congress (Washington, DC), and Professor Elliot Sperling and Mark Day of Indiana University (Bloomington, IN).  In March 2000, the Trace Foundation acquired the database for the purposes of expanding the breadth of journals covered and enriching the information provided in each record. Accordingly, Alexandru Anton-Luca, working on behalf of the Latse Contemporary Tibetan Cultural Library until May 2003, coordinated data-entry by several Tibetan graduates in Lanzhou and Xining. These assistants not only entered basic bibliographic information, but also perused each article in order to provide users with substantial abstracts for thousands of records.

The current version of the database now contains more than 10,000 bibliographic entries.  Most titles are translated into English, and keywords have been added to enhance the search capacity of the database.  Many of the abstracts have also been translated into English.  In December 2003, Latse Library made the full database available for free public use on the Internet with the technical expertise of Eric Colombel. The site continues to be developed in consultation with Lauran Hartley.

In all aspects, Bya-ra remains a "work-in-progress."  We would appreciate your feedback on this site―whether it concern misinformation, typographical errors, or the user-interface―so that we may better meet the needs of Tibetologists throughout the international community.

Copyright © 2006 Trace Foundation.
All rights reserved.