Information collection & accessibility in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia & Xinjiang

The study of twentieth and early twenty-first century Mongolia on the one hand, and Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang on the other hand, necessitates the use of a multitude of oral and written sources in a variety of different languages; thus the first major obstacle for a scholar and an educated audience is the extraordinary diversity of the essential languages. No single person can master such a wide array of languages and scripts. A collaborative effort, which is not always optimal for scholars, would be one way of overcoming this difficulty. More likely, however, scholars will choose individual topics based upon their knowledge of specific languages. A specialist who studies these various works would then be capable of devising an accurate appraisal.