MCLC: oral literature database

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: oral literature database
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Anyone know the url for this database? I did a (very) quick google search
and didn't come up with anything. The Chinese name seems to be: 中国口头文学
遗产数据库
. 

Thanks, Kirk 

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Source: China Daily (3/11/14):
http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/culture/2014-03/11/content_17337991.htm

Oral traditions now accessible with a click
By Han Bingbin (China Daily)


A key value of passing down a culture by word of mouth is that it takes on
so many different forms in the process, reflecting changes in people's
mentality and social reality.

Now an online database, the result of the Chinese Folk Artists
Association's Chinese Oral Literature Digitalization Project, gives fans
of Chinese traditional culture a chance to observe the evolution.

Type in the name of a folk legend, for example, and all related versions
will pop up for your reference. Users can do this with 11 genres of oral
literature, including myths, riddles and folk songs.

In the 1950s, 1980s and early 2000s, the association organized three
massive searches for Chinese oral literature nationwide.
More than 2 million professionals - many of them veteran librarians and
scholars who have devoted most of their life observing and recording the
country's disappearing traditions - have been sent to more than 2,800
counties to seek out the hidden gems of China's rich folk culture.

In addition to an exciting number of folk tales, folk music and proverbs,
the records also include the backgrounds of the narrators, the people
recording the story and information about how the content was found and
recorded. It is a pity that most of these rare materials did not have a
chance to be published.

Feng Jicai, one of the best-known Chinese writers and now chairman of the
folk artists association, has dedicated years to discovering and
preserving the country's folk culture. In 2010, to make its collections
accessible to the general public, Feng initiated the Chinese Oral
Literature Digitalization Project.

All the written materials are uploaded on an online database, where they
are carefully categorized by region, subject matter and so on to be easily
accessible by the public.

Now home to 4,905 books of oral literature records, comprising more than
800 million words, the database will serve as a free library for anyone
interested in exploring China's literary heritage.

Feng says the database is like a modern counterpart of Siku Quanshu
(Emperor's Four Treasuries), a complete library in four branches of
literature which Qing Dynasty's Qianlong Emperor commissioned to
demonstrate that Qing could surpass the Ming Dynasty's 1403 Yongle
Encyclopedia - China's largest encyclopedia at the time.

"These stories of Chinese people's moral principles and values have been
passed down through generations," Feng says.

"I hope one day these materials can also meet the public in hard copies,
bringing China's 5,000-year-old intangible oral literature to the hall of
Chinese civilization."