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Guide to Searching for Chinese Materials in PITTCat

Which romanization system to use
What characters to use
Which search method retrieves the most results
What to do when characters do not display properly
What to do when diacritics do not display properly
How to enter search terms in Chinese characters
How to enter search terms in Pinyin
Tips for searching Chinese materials
Note on printing, saving, and emailing search results
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Which romanization system to use

PITTCat adopts Pinyin as the way to display Romanized content of the bibliographic records. The Pinyin system has replaced the Wade-Giles system as the standard in libraries in North America for creating Latin script readings for Chinese characters. This means, in general, library users must search in Pinyin to find Chinese-language materials, regardless of publishing locations.

What characters to use

PITTCat is capable of displaying both the simplified and the traditional Chinese characters. It also accommodates searching terms in both the simplified and traditional characters.

Which search method retrieves the most results

Currently, searches in simplified characters on PITTCat will only retrieve records that contains simplified characters, and vice versa with searches in traditional characters. Searches in Pinyin will retrieve records for both, therefore, to maximize the search results, Pinyin search is recommended.

What to do when characters do not display properly

In most cases, you’ll just need to change the encoding under VIEW into Unicode (UTF-8).

What to do when diacritics do not display properly

Depending on which browser you use, there are different steps to follow.

Netscape: Choose Arial Unicode MS as the font for the browser

Internet Explorer: In addition to choosing Arial Unicode MS, please check “Ignore font styles specified on web pages” by clicking on Tools →Internet Options → Accessibility,

How to enter search terms in Chinese characters

You’ll need to choose Chinese Input Method Editor (IME) available on most computers in the library and the computer labs.

How to enter search terms in Pinyin to search for Chinese materials

In general, enter the Pinyin for each Chinese character with a space, such as Li lao shi for 李老师， Ming Qing xiao shuo for 明清小说. However, there are certain situations where you need to join syllables:

Given names: 孙中山 Sun Zhongshan
Multi-character surnames: 司马相如 Sima Xiangru
Forenames and courtesy names: 无名氏 Wumingshi, 孔子 Kongzi
Names of persons of religious vocation: 玄奘法师 Xuangzang fa shi
Multi-character geographical names. Separate generic terms for geographical features or jurisdictions from the names of the features or jurisdictions: 中华人民共和国 Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo, 海南岛 Hainan Dao, 太平洋 Taiping Yang
Names of racial, linguistic, or ethnic groups: 基督徒 Jidu tu, 毛南族 Maonan zu, 美国人 Meiguo ren

The ALA-LC Romanization Table for Chinese contains details on when to join or separate syllables when you enter Pinyin to search for Chinese materials. You may need to familiar yourself with it in order to do effective and efficient search.

If you are more familiar with Wade-Giles or Zhuyin, you may refer to the guide on Pinyin to Zhuyin to Wade-Giles Conversion for help.

Search Tips for Searching Chinese Materials

The following search tips apply to Chinese materials only. For search tips on English materials, please refer to Guide to Searching PITTCat

Type of Search	Example	Search Tips
Title	hong lou meng 红楼梦 / 紅樓夢 xizang zizhiqu 西藏自治区 / 西藏自治區 zhonghua renmin gongheguo 中华人民共和国中華人民共和國 zhonghua minguo 中华民国 /中華民國 Hainan Dao 海南岛 / 海南島 Taiping Yang / 太平洋	Key in the title with exact spelling and word order. Separate the Pinyin for each character. Join together the Pinyin for multi-character geographic names. For country names, join the Pinyin according to the practice followed by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. Separate generic terms for geographical features or jurisdictions from the names of the features or jurisdictions
Author	gao xingjian / 高行健 wang xiaobo /王晓波/王曉波 zhang ailing / 张爱玲/張愛玲 ouyang xiu / 欧阳修 sima xiangru /司马相如 nikeson /尼克松 wugangzhuren /梧岗主人 kongzi /孔子	Author’s last name then first name Separate the pinyin for last name and first name Join together the pinyin for multi-character surnames, given names, translation of foreign names, Buddhist names, courtesy names, etc.
Journal Title	sichuan da xue xue bao 四川大学学报 / 四川大學學報	Key in the title with exact spelling and word order
Keyword	gong ye nian jian 工业年鉴 / 工業年鑒 ren kou pu cha AND min zu 人口普查 AND民族	Use the Keyword search mode when the exact word order of a title or author is uncertain or unknown. Choose ”as a phrase” instead of “any of these” or “all of these” for more accurate results. One search box for one phrase. Use either AND, OR, or NOT to connect two or more search boxes.

Special Note on Printing, Saving and E-mailing Search Results

It is possible to successfully print or save Chinese characters using the "Save, Print or E-mail Records" function of PITTCat (found at the bottom of search results and single record displays). However, at this time it is not possible to retain Chinese characters or diacritic marks when E-mailing records.