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Africana Library Catalogs & Archives
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Africana Library Catalogs On-Line
- Libraries with major Africana collections in North America
- Libraries with major Africana collections in Europe and Australia
- Libraries in West, Eastern and Southern Africa
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Africa Focus: Sights and Sounds of a Continent (University of Wisconsin-Madison
Libraries and African Studies Program, Madison, Wisconsin)
This website offers downloadable images, sound files, and other materials on Africa drawn from contributions by UWM faculty over the last 20-30
years.
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Africa Research Central: a clearinghouse of African primary sources. Compiled by
Kathryn Green and Susan Tschabrun, California State University, San Bernadino, California.
"Research in African primary sources--be they records, manuscripts, personal papers, photographs, or artifacts--has posed challenges to the
research community since the dawn of African Studies as a discipline. Scholars outside Africa struggle to learn about the holdings, services, and
clearance procedures of African repositories, while scholars within Africa must cope with the fact that much of the African primary source
heritage is housed beyond the borders of Africa. Africa Research Central has as its goal to centralize and constantly update information about the
institutions with African primary source collections, so as to facilitate international research in African Studies."
- African Activist Archive Project (African Studies Center, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan)
This website includes a "directory of African activist archives" in the U.S.
"[The project] seeks to preserve for history the record of activities of U.S. organizations and individuals that supported African struggles for freedom and had a significant collective impact on U.S. policy during the period 1950-1994."
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AFRINUL: African Newspapers Union List. A project of the
Cooperative Africana Microform Project. (The Center for Research Libraries, Chicago, Illinois)
Currently, a searchable database of holdings in North America. "Initially, this database ... will consolidate holdings information for
collections in North America, but will later expand to include holdings in Africa, Europe, and elsewhere."
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African Posters from the Melville J. Herskovits Library,
Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois)
"The Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University maintains a comprehensive collection of posters published
in Africa and elsewhere. The posters provide a unique resource to carry on research in a broad range of disciplines by consulting the visual image
created by governments (independent and colonial) and international agencies, as well as political, labor, social, religious, educational and
cultural organizations. In the first phase of this web site, 77 posters, selected as a representative sampling of the collection, are available
for searching and viewing."
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African Presidential Archives and Research Center at Boston University (Boston,
Massachusetts)
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Africana Digitization Project: Electronic Facsimile, University of
Wisconsin--Madison Libraries
A pilot project offering free access to searchable online copies of published sources for West African history with a focus on the
Atlantic Slave Trade era. The titles include:
-- Almada, Andre Alvares de, Brief Treatise on the Rivers of Guinea, c. 1594.
-- Alvares, Manuel, Ethiopia Minor and a Geographical Account of the Province of Sierra Leone.
-- Barbot's West African Vocabularies of c. 1680.
-- Fage, J.D., A Guide to Original Sources for Precolonial Western Africa Published in European Languages.
-- Jesuit Documents on the Guinea of Cape Verde and the Cape Verde Islands, 1585-1617.
-- Jones, Adam. Raw, medium, well done: a critical review of editorial and quasi-editorial work on pre-1885 European sources for Sub-Saharan
Africa, 1960-1986 (1987)
-- Lovejoy, Paul E. (ed.), Africans in bondage: studies in slavery and the slave trade: essays in honor of Philip D. Curtin...(1986)
- Archives Hub: a national gateway to descriptions of archives in United Kingdom universities and colleges (University of Manchester, UK)
- Archives nationales de la France. IREL: Etats général des fonds Le Centre des Archives d'Outre Mer. (Aix-en-Provence, France)
- Archives Nationales du Sénégal (Dakar,
Sénégal)
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Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique (Maputo, Mozambique)
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Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (Portugal) (via Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, Lisbon, Portugal)
This site --in Portuguese-- provides descriptions of the collections and contact information only. From the main IICT site, under "TDD", "SIARQ", and "Bases de Dados", limited searching is possible.
- Die Bildbestand der Deutschen Kolonialgesellschaft in der Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main: Colonial Picture Archive (Frankfurt, Germany)
- "The project...encompasses safety filming of 50,000-70,000 historical photographs from German colonial history."
- Suchen = Search
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Black Arts Research Center (Nyack, New York)
General information about the center, its director -- John Gray, and related links. "Founded in 1989, the Black Arts Research Center is an
archival resource center dedicated to the documentation, preservation and dissemination of the African cultural legacy. Resources include some
2300 recordings, cassettes and videotapes, 1300 books and journals, 500 clippings files and a bibliographic database with more than 50,000
entries. These materials now offer one of the richest resources ever on the Black presence in the performing arts."
- Brooklyn College Library: The Robert L. Hess Collections on Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa -and- the Continent of Africa (Brooklyn College, The City University of New York)
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CAMP: Cooperative Africana Microform Project (Center for Research
Libraries, Chicago)
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Centre Aequatoria - Centre de Recherches Culturelles Africanistes (Bamanya, Mbandaka, R.
D. Congo ; Michael Meeuwis, Université d'Anvers, Belgium)
Le site Web est en français ou en anglais. "Le Centre Aequatoria est situé à Bamanya, 10 km de Mbandaka, où le
fleuve Zaire traverse la ligne de l'équateur. Il consiste en une bibliothèque, des archives, un périodique (6000 livres
et 3000 volumes de périodiques). La bibliothèque est spécialisée en linguistique bantu et histoire coloniale."
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Chatham House -- Library. formerly The Royal Institute of International Affairs. (London, UK)
General information and select lists of recently acquired publications.
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DATAD: Database of African Theses and Dissertations =
La base de donnée sur les thèses et mémoires africaines (Association of
African Universities, Accra, Ghana)
- DISA: Digital Innovation South Africa (University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa)
- Duke University Libraries: John Hope Franklin Collection of African and African American Documentation Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library (Durham, North Carolina)
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L'Ecole du Patrimoine Africain (Porto-Novo, République du Bénin)
"L'EPA est un établissement universitaire de formation et de recherche spécialisé dans la conservation et la
médiation du patrimoine culturel mobilier et immobilier à vocation régionale." Sur ce site, on peut apprendre les
activités de l'école et les actualités culturelles, participer dans un forum, et trouver une liste de liens aux pages
d'accueils de musées africaines et d'autres organisations.
- Emory University: Voyages -- The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (Atlanta, Georgia)
The site provides free access to selected data on thousands of slave ship voyages; plus scholarly essays and maps. "[The database] is the culmination of several decades of independent and collaborative research by scholars drawing upon data in libraries and archives around the Atlantic world. The Voyages website itself is the product of two years of development by a multi-disciplinary team of historians, librarians, curriculum specialists, cartographers, computer programmers, and web designers, in consultation with scholars of the slave trade..."
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ESARBICA: Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Branch, International Council on
Archives (via GeoCities.Com)
- "ESARBICA established in 1969 in Kenya, ESARBICA brings together individuals and institutions concerned with the
creation, use, preservation and management of recorded information in Eastern and Southern Africa."
- ESARBICA publications
- Ethiopian National Archives and Library (Addis Ababa)
- Manuscrits Ethiopiens -- Inventaire des Bibliothèques et des Catalogues (janvier 2008). Par Anaïs Wion, Marie-Laure Derat et Claire Bosc-Tiessé. (Ménestrel--medievistes sur l'internet, sources, travaux, references en ligne, Paris)
en format PDF
- France. Archives de: Centre des Archives d'Outre Mer. (Aix-en-Provence, France)
- France. Guide de bibliothèques à Paris et en régions dont les fonds présentent un intérêt pour la recherche sur l'Afrique (mai 2009) Ressources documentaires ; 2. -- Paris: Centre d'études africaines, L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 2009. 29 pages en format PDF
- Harriet Tubman Resource Centre on the African Diaspora: SHADD--Studies in the History of the African Diaspora--Documents. York/UNESCO Nigerian Hinterland Project. (Department of History, York University, Toronto, Canada)
"SHADD publishes manuscripts [some online] in Arabic, French, Portuguese, English, Spanish and other languages relevant to the history of the African diaspora." See also, the Home Page.
- Howard University: SARAP--South African Research and Archival Project (Washington, DC)
The website includes the online guides to records on deposit at Howard University and to a small selection of collections in South Africa, such as those at the University of Fort Hare. "[In 2001...] This project began as an effort to identify, locate and describe documentation about the diasporic relationship between blacks in South Africa and the United States."
-- See also: Moorland Spingarn Research Center below.
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Images of Colonial Africa (circa 1900-1914) by Laura Neva
Collins of the Africa Inland Mission (Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois)
"The images displayed here are one woman's view, mostly of Kenya, at the beginning of the twentieth century, probably before 1914. They
depict the country's society, customs, economics, and geography, as well as its growing Christian church, the missionary community assisting
in that endeavor, and Collins herself. Also included are some photographs from Cameroon, the Belgian Congo and Uganda."
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Indiana University Libraries: Liberian Collections Project (Bloomington, Indiana)
This website provides information about the project, searchable inventory lists for several collections, and related information. 'The
collections include historical and ethnographic documents, newspapers, government publications, books, journals, dissertations, maps, slides,
negatives, photographs, audio & video tapes, etc.'
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JICPA: Joint IFLA/ICA Committee for Preservation in Africa = Comité conjoint IFLA/CIA pour la
préservation en Afrique (2003). Sponsored by the International Federation of Library Associations and the International Council on
Archives. (Nairobi, Kenya)
General contact information and news of conferences, surveys, and projects of major African archives and national libraries.
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Kenya National Archives (Kenya National Archives and Documentation Service, Nairobi,
Kenya)
General information, lists of services, news about activities and publications, guides to the collections and -- under construction:
searchable databases.
- Kenya National Archives Microfilm Collection at Syracuse University Library (Syracuse, New York)
"Syracuse University is one of two repositories of the microfilm collection of the KNA, produced in the 1960's through a joint grant with the National Science Foundation, the government of Kenya, and the Program of Eastern African Studies of Syracuse University (no longer in existence). The other collection is owned by the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago [See: Cooperative Africana Microform Project]. The documents include 157 microfilm reels...and a large number of microfilm reels of newspapers, journals, and papers of assorted associations."
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Libraries of Timbuktu (via University of Oslo, Norway)
This web site presents information about the efforts under way to preserve the libraries of Timbuktu and their contents; with relevant links. See
also, Mamma Haidara Memorial Library Project...below.
- The Library of Congress: "The State of Arabic Manuscript Collections in Nigeria" (2007) Report of a Survey Tour to Northern Nigeria, March 3-19, 2007. (Dr. Angel Batiste, Area Specialist, Sub-Saharan Africa; Washington, DC)
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Mamma Haidara Memorial Library Project, Timbuktu, Mali
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Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University (Washington,
DC)
"[The Center] is recognized as one of the world's largest and most comprehensive repositories for the documentation of the history and
culture of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and other parts of the world. As one of Howard University's major research
facilities, the MSRC collects, preserves, and makes available for research a wide range of resources chronicling the Black experience."
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Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale = Royal Museum for Central Africa
(Tervuren, Belgique)
- National Archives of Nigeria (Abuja, Nigeria)
The site includes detailed information on all branches and archival finding aids for major collections around the country.
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National Archives of South Africa (Pretoria)
The site offers general information about the NASA and access to the various databases of the NAAIRS--National Automated Archival Information
Retrieval System.
- Northwestern University, Melville J. Herskovits Library--Special Collections (Evanston, Illinois)
- Rhodes University Library (Grahamstown, South Africa)
- RU Library Home Page
- The Cory Library
"The Library's archival holdings are particularly strong in the fields of Southern African history, including Xhosa history, mission and church history, the history of education and mining, commercial and agricultural history. It has a strong collection of material on Lesotho. Since the initial deposit of Sir George Cory's collections there has been a particular focus on the history of the Eastern Cape, and on Grahamstown itself."
- Electronic Theses and Dissertations Initiative
- The Say Brother Collection -- WGBH Boston (Boston, Massachusetts)
The website of the archive of a local public television program (1968-1982), featuring a searchable program directory and an extensive digital gallery of sample film excerpts. "Say Brother is WGBH's longest running public affairs television program by, for and about African Americans, and is now known as Basic Black. Since its inception in 1968, Say Brother has featured the voices of both locally and nationally known African American artists, athletes, performers, politicians, professionals, and writers..."
- The South African History Archive (SAHA) (University of the Witwatersrand, Braamfontein, South Africa)
SAHA was formed in 1988 by the United Democratic Front and the Congress of South African Trade Unions to collect & preserve documents from the struggle against apartheid during the 1980s.
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United Kingdom, The National Archives (Kew, Richmond, Surrey)
- UNESCO--United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Paris, France)
- La Route de l'Esclave = Slave Route Project, 1994-2005
Sur ce site, on peut trouver les informations à propos de ce projet, des publications, des activités du Comité scientifique, quelques cartes sur les routes internationales de la traite négrière, et aussi, une carte, un exemplaire d'un bulletin (PDF), et des liens choisis.
- UNESCO Slave Trade Archives Project (Memory of the World)
This site offers general information about the project and links to related web sites. "The Slave Trade Archives Project, initiated by UNESCO, is concerned with the access to and preservation of original archive materials relating to the slave trade."
- Tradition orale et archives de la traite négrière (2001) sous la direction de Djibril Tamsir Niane.
-- Paris, France: UNESCO, c2001. 143 pages en format PDF
- University of Cape Town Libraries -- Manuscripts & Archives (Cape Town, South Africa)
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University of Florida Libraries: Africanist Archives (Dan
Reboussin, Gainesville, Florida)
This site offers bibliographies and general information about some of the unique archival collections at the George Smathers Libraries, University
of Florida: including those on Chad, Northern Nigeria, Dem. Rep. of Congo (ex-Zaire), Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.
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University of Fort Hare, Howard Pim Library (Alice, South Africa)
- Established in 1918: "The valuable Africana collection ... houses rare books and unique collections such as the
Steve Biko Letters, and the Lennox Papers. Significant landmarks in the growth of the Library include the reincorporation of the Federal Seminary
Library into the main campus Library, as well as the integration of important liberation movement archives such as those of the African National
Congress.
- Liberation Movement Archives: Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College Records; UFH Records; Personal
records of Oliver Tambo, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Lionel Forman, and others.
- UFHL Collections
- University of Kwa Zulu-Natal: The Campbell Collections -- Guides to Collections and Catalogs (Durban, South Africa)
The web site for various historic manuscript collections and libraries....including The Killie Campbell Africana Library.
- University of London Research Library Services -- Archives and Manuscripts Online Catalogue (London, UK)
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University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies Library:
Swahili Manuscripts Project (London, UK)
- The website describes the on-going project and offers an online catalog of the collection. "The library of the
School of Oriental and African Studies holds the largest public collection of Swahili manuscripts in Britain. The collection includes more than
250 manuscripts dating from the 1790s to the 1970s, contained in the papers of William Taylor, Alice Werner, William Hichens, Wilfred Whiteley,
Jan Knappert and Yahya Ali Omar. The library also holds microfilms of the manuscripts that were deposited by JWT Allen at the University of Dar es
Salaam."
- Selected images from manuscripts and audio files
- University of the Witwatersrand Library--Historical Papers Department (Johannesburg,
South Africa)
"The University established Historical Papers in 1966 in order to retrieve the rich historical heritage belonging to all South Africans.
Today we house over 3000 separate collections of historical, political and cultural importance." The web site includes information about its collections, including: Papers of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe (1924-1977) and the Pan Africanist Congress ; South African History Archive; and the Records of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.
- West African Arabic Manuscript Project & Database (Prof. Charles C. Stewart and Bruce Stewart Hall, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois)
A catalog of West African Arabic manuscript collections from Kano--Nigeria at Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois), from Ségou (Mali) at La Bibliothèque nationale de France (Paris), in Boutilimit and Nouakchott--Mauritania, Timbuctu--Mali, and Niamey--Niger. The database is searchable in English or in Arabic.
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