8,000 titles in more than 8,500 volumes.

For many scholars, the Republican period witnessed one of the largest and most sweeping intellectual revolutions in human history. It was during this period that Chinese scholars began to look westward and incorporate Western research methodologies into their existing, traditional modes of conducting research. Also, many new academic disciplines were founded outside of the traditional arenas of history, philosophy, and literature.

In the 1980s, scholars began to regard publications from the Republican period as products of an academically vigorous and significant period that offered a window through which to examine the intellectual development of modern China. Given this development, Chinese publishing houses began to reprint important publications from the Republican period, a process that witnessed its culmination in the publication of Mingguo ji cui. This collection, with a highly limited print run and only several copies offered to North American institutions, is the largest of its kind and offers researchers unprecedented access to the period.

At Stanford, there are strong and ever-increasing research interests on modern China and the Republican period in particular. The Stanford East Asia Library is known to hold one of the preeminent collections of Republican period materials in the world; the addition of this unique collection to the EAL simply strengthening an already outstanding collection. This has greatly facilitated the research of modern China specialists at Stanford as well as throughout North America.