Each subject guide includes information about encyclopedias, handbooks, journals, large sets and important websites. The subjects covered reflect programmatic and library strengths. Cross-references are frequently supplied in a feature box on the right hand side of the page. 

The reference sources cited are titles Duke holds. While most of the sources are in Japanese, English titles are included. The intent is to aid both a researcher starting a new project as well as someone looking for electronic texts, data and/or images in a field.

Each of the guides should be used in conjunction with the general resources mentioned in Getting Started and Reference tools.