When conducting dialect surveys in various provinces, IHP researchers would typically invite local speakers to read a piece of text, such as the “Founding Father’s [Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s] Will” or fables including “The North Wind and the Sun” and “The Fox and the Tiger.” They recorded the speaker’s voice on aluminum discs and then annotated what was said with phonetic symbols when organizing their survey materials.
The Archives, IHP, houses a group of materials concerning these dialect surveys, including the researchers’ schedules, aluminum discs used for recording, the backgrounds of participating speakers, records of phonetic symbols, correspondences regarding the purchase of discs and other equipment, as well as dialect maps and manuscripts analyzing collected data. These materials preserve the academic processes of collection, collation, and analysis, which often culminated in the publication of monographs. Furthermore, the digitized aluminum discs serve as valuable resources for the preservation of Chinese dialects.