The entire database consisting of nine million Chinese characters in 103 works was completed in March 1991. While the establishment of databases of ancient Chinese texts have been attempted in both mainland China and Taiwan, the ICS database is the first of its kind in Hong Kong and is significantly different from those in China and Taiwan in research orientation and mode of compilation. First, the database contains the entire body of extant traditional texts of a specific period, i.e. Han and pre-Han. Such texts constitute the sources of Chinese culture and are of great historical value. With the establishment of the database the international community of scholars will have ready access to all extant ancient Chinese texts of the period, thus facilitating a wide range of research, whether in Chinese literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, or lexicography.
Lexicographers can use the database for exhaustive study of lexical items found in ancient works.
For the database, the best early editions have been chosen, mainly from the Sibu Congkan collection. Punctuation and textual notes are then added, and emendations are clearly marked in such a manner as to render it easy for the reader to recover the original text. The completion of the database makes it possible to compile a complete series of concordances to ancient texts in the Han and pre-Han periods, which is the ultimate objective of the entire research project. It is not an exaggeration to say that in the past 60 years or so in the field of sinology, no other research tool has contributed more to ancient Chinese studies than the concordances produced by the Harvard-Yenching Institute in the 30s under the editorship of Dr. William Hung. Unfortunately this work was cut short by the Second World War.