Searching Catalogs | Locating Material

To find bibliographic information on Tibetan materials, search CLIO.

When searching CLIO for a topic, try a keyword search using either romanized Tibetan terms or English terms.

Records for Tibetan-language materials in CLIO, Columbia's online catalog, employ the ALA-Library of Congress system of transliteration. This schema is very similar to the Wylie romanization used in current western scholarship, with only a few minor differences.

The following table is also available for download.

Many popular books and internet sites use non-standard forms of spelling which are based on how Tibetan words sound when pronounced, leaving out the many silent letters.

When searching the computer for Tibetan language authors, titles, or subjects, remember to include all silent letters or no result will be obtained. However, if you are searching a non-Tibetan book with Tibetan subject matter, a non-standard keyword search may yield results if the spellings match the popular ones employed in the particular book.

Note that the last keyword search yielded 5 titles, 3 in English with popular spellings and 2 from Sikkim which had non-standard spelling in the online records.

Although several punctuation marks are used by the Library of Congress system to differentiate sounds, when typing search terms in CLIO, do not use punctuation.

Traditional Tibetan texts (dpe-cha) are shelved in the Tibetan Reading Room at Lehman Library, while modern-format books and most other materials are in the C. V. Starr East Asian Library (300 Kent Hall.)  About 40% of modern-format titles are stored off-site at RECAP, but can be requested for pick-up (with 48 hours advance notice). 

Rare titles are housed at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Butler Library, 6th floor), or in the Kress Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room at the Starr Library.  Columbia owns some very valuable Tibetan religious works, including early Bon texts as well as a nearly complete Snar-thang edition of the Buddhist canon, published between 1730 and 1732. 

Please see CLIO records for location details, or contact the Tibetan Studies librarian if you have any question.

• TIBETAN LANGUAGE WORKS
  

Loose-leaf format traditional texts
Housed in Lehman Library's Tibetan Reading Room.

Modern-format books
Housed in the C. V. Starr East Asian Library's regular stacks.

Rare and Special items
Starr Library's Special Collections area, or the Rare Book and Manuscript Library (6th floor of Butler Library).

Serials
Unbound recent issues displayed in Starr East Asian's main reading room; bound issues of previous two years are shelved in Starr's regular stacks; earlier issues are bound and stored off-site. Available for two-week loan.

Newspapers
Current issues for some 30-40 regularly subscribed titles are available in the periodicals alcove of the C. V. Starr East Asian Library's main reading room.

Reference works
Housed in Starr East Asian's main reading room; some duplicate copies in Lehman's Tibetan Reading Room. Tripitaka is housed with other language editions on the 250 stack level of Starr.

• CHINESE AND JAPANESE WORKS 
  All secondary scholarship on Tibetan subjects in these languages is located in the Starr East Asian Library.

• WESTERN LANGUAGE WORKS 
  Most English, French, and German scholarship on Tibetan subjects is housed either in Starr, Butler, or offsite, except for items purchased specially by Barnard College or the Avery Art & Architecture Library.

If you need help locating materials in either the C.V. Starr East Asian Library or the Lehman Tibetan Reading Room, please contact the Tibetan Studies Librarian, Lauran Hartley (lh2112@columbia.edu; 212-854-9875); or the bibliographic assistant, Chopathar Wayemache (jm900@columbia.edu; 212-854-1509).