Southeast Asia Section

Tips for Finding Materials on Southeast Asia in the UW Libraries Catalog

UW Libraries catalog Catalog to the holdings of the University of Washington Libraries.

For general tips on using the catalog, refer to UW Libraries Catalog and published Guides available at the Suzzallo Reference Desk. The Libraries provides extensive Library Instruction Sessions.

Uncataloged Vernacular Materials

The Libraries has a backlog of uncataloged materials in the languages of Southeast Asia. Uncatalogued materials in all languages are available as brief order records through the catalog. These records will be retrieved only if you search by author, exact title or keywords in author or title. If you are looking for materials in vernacular languages it is advisable to use a vernacular term as a searching keyword, since these records do not have subject headings and cannot be retrieved by English language keywords.

Using keyword

This is probably the easiest way to search the catalog by subject, since a Keyword search will search all fields, including Author, Title and Subject Heading. A Keyword search will retrieve an item whether the term occurs in the title of the book or as a component of the Subject Heading.

Searching by Subject

The University of Washington Libraries uses the Library of Congress Subject Headings to describe the content of books cataloged. The Library of Congress geographical heading for Southeast Asia has been changed from Asia, Southeastern to Southeast Asia .

The Library of Congress term for the American war in Viet Nam is: Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975

If you are not sure what terms to use in your search and Keyword is not an option, ask at the Reference Desk to see the Library of Congress Subject Heading books.

Searching by Language

The Libraries uses the Library of Congress transliteration tables for representing Burmese, Khmer, Lao, Thai (and classical scripts such as Jawi) in the roman alphabet. These tables are not easy to interpret; please contact the Southeast Asia Section Office for assistance if you are unable to locate the author or title you are looking for.

You can limit your search by language using the pull down menu option in the Language field.