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In principle, all items in this collection have been cataloged and are searchable via the Library’s online catalog. Please note that some catalog records for pre-1946 Japanese materials contain only romanized text, with no kana or kanji. Furthermore, those that do contain Japanese writing typically include older Chinese character forms (kyūjitai 旧字体) that are no longer in use and may be difficult to input via keyboard. The online catalog treats these as separate characters, and searching for their modern equivalents will not yield any matches.
For best results, try searching in romanized Japanese first. For guidelines on romanization standards, please consult the Library’s Japanese romanization table:
The best way to retrieve South Manchurian Railway Company (SMRC) publications is by using Keyword Search with the EXPERT function in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.
Bibliographic records for SMRC publications contain the phrase “Minami Manshū Tetsudō Kabushiki Kaisha” or the tag “MMTKK” in their metadata, and some include both. To ensure a thorough search of all SMRC publications in the catalog, you can model your search on the example below. (Note: search terms are not case sensitive and do not have to include macrons.)
(MMTKK or “Minami Manshū Tetsudō Kabushiki Kaisha”) and “your search term”
Replace “your search term” with the term(s) you wish to search (retain quotation marks if you wish to search as an exact phrase). Next, select “EXPERT (use index codes and operators)” from the drop-down menu on the right and then click the search button. You can search both for Japanese terms corresponding to the author, title, or publisher of a work and for English terms found in the catalog record's subject headings. For example, if you are looking for materials related to coal mining, you could search for "sekitan", "石炭", or "coal". For maximum coverage, try searching different terms in both languages. You may also click the "Add Limits" button to narrow your such by year of publication, type of material, etc.
Another option for locating collection materials is to Browse by Author/Creator.
To locate materials in the collection, search the phrase Minami Manshū Tetsudō Kabushiki Kaisha (see screenshot below). This will allow you to browse groupings of publications that have been cataloged with SMRC and its various divisions listed as a corporate author, such as the Keizai chōsakai 經濟調查會 (Economic Research Association) or Tetsudōbu 鐵道部 (Rails Department).
