Africana Librarianship, Book Dealers, Projects & Publishers

Awards, Book Fairs, Exhibitions, and News
Book Dealers and Publishers
Organizations and Conferences
Projects -- Indexes and Digital Archives
Related Resources

Awards, Exhibitions, & News

Book Dealers & Publishers

Inclusion in the following list does not imply endorsement by Columbia University Libraries.

  • NOTE: The American Library Association ran a survey in 2002 of major academic and research libraries to compile a list of Book and Serial Vendors for Africa and the Middle East (2002). In addition to this list, see the links below. For French language publications on Africa, see especially the following major Paris-based publishers of Africana: L'Harmattan and Karthala below, as well as Maison d'édition africaines. See also, the "cyber-catalogue" of a Paris-based association of francophone African pubishers called Afrilivres and the online boutique of Soumbala.Com.
  • Africa Book Centre (Brighton, UK)
    A major international bookseller for books from and about Africa, as well as an important co-sponsor of African literary events in the UK.
  • Africa South of the Sahara -- Book Dealers and Publishers (Karen Fung, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California)
    Two very useful lists of web sites & contact information for booksellers and publishers who carry Africana titles.
  • Africa World Press and Red Sea Press (Lawrenceville and Trenton, New Jersey)
    An African-run, multinational publishing house: academic and trade books published in the USA on Africa and the African diaspora.
  • African Books Collective Ltd. (Oxford, UK; GreenNet Design)
    'ABC is a unique organization. It is not a conventional commercial distributor. It was founded in 1989 by 17 African publishers who established and own the company. The publishers established ABC's offices and warehouse in the UK as their exclusive overseas distributor; and the location of the operation reflects the fact that the markets we are accessing are the English-language markets in the UK, Europe, the US and elsewhere. Further publishers have joined since the start of trading in 1990, and the total membership is now 42 publishers from 12 African countries.'

  • APNET--African Publishers Network  (Harare, Zimbabwe)
    "The African Publishers Network, established in 1992, brings together national publishers associations and publishing communities to strengthen indigenous publishing throughout Africa.."
  • Afrilivres -- livres d'Afrique et des diasporas (Africultures, Paris, France)
    << ...depuis le 12 novembre 2002, Afrilivres présente tous les titres non-scolaires publiés par les éditeurs d'Afrique francophone regroupés en association >>.
  • Books LIVE (Cape Town, South Africa)
    A general book news and events portal for South Africa and the wider world.
  • Clarke's Bookshop -- Cape Town, South Africa
  • East African Educational Publishers, Ltd. (Nairobi, Kenya)
  • L'Harmattan (Paris)
    L'Harmattan est une majeure maison d'édition dans le domaine des études africaines.
  • Indian Ocean Books (Larry W. Bowman, Storrs, Connecticut)
    A bookseller specializing in books, maps, and prints -- used and antiquarian -- from and about the Indian Ocean region.
  • Karthala (Paris)
    "Les éditions Karthala publient des ouvrages sur l'Afrique et l'ocean Indien, le Monde arabe et l'Islam, la Caraïbe, l'Amérique latine et l'Asie et, plus largement, sur les questions Nord-Sud."
  • Map Sellers on the Internet
  • Maisons D'Edition Africaines (via Lire les femmes ecrivains et les littératures africaines, Dr. Jean-Marie Volet, University of Western Australia)
    A listing of and very brief information about publishing houses in French-speaking West Africa (plus Baobab Books in Zimbabwe) which specialize in publishing African women writers -- fiction and nonfiction.
  • McBlain Books: Antiquarian Booksellers (Hamden, Connecticut)
  • MEABOOKS.COM (Oleg Semikhnenko, Canada)
    A major North American distributor for books from Africa (also, Russia and Poland).
  • Mkuki na Nyota Publishers (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) --via African Books Collective, Oxford, UK.
    "Mkuki na Nyota Publishers is an indigenous Book Publishing Company established in 1991, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. With a background of 18 years as the General Manager of the Tanzania Publishing House, Walter Bgoya established Mkuki na Nyota Publishers in response to the general absence of independent scholarly publishing in Tanzania. Concentrating initially on scholarly books and general titles, MnNP have since then developed a diverse list of scholarly titles in the social sciences, fiction, children's books and have recently branched out to publish high quality art books."
  • Mother Tongue Editions: promoting literacy, writing, and publishing in African languages (West Newbury, Massachusetts)
    "...a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of African languages and cultures, in all of the forms in which they are manifested. Initially involved uniquely in publishing, today MTE produces and distributes a variety of culturally significant representations of language and traditional artisanry."
    --Publications for sale
  • New Africa Books (Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa)
    "New Africa Books (Pty) Limited is a new company formed as a result of the merger of David Philip Publishers, Spearhead Press and New Africa Educational Publishing. Prior to this merger, David Philip Publishers and New Africa Education Publishing were separate companies owned by New Africa Media, a subsidiary of New Africa Investments Limited, which owns several radio, newspaper, magazine and television production companies. Spearhead was operating as an imprint of David Philip Publishers."
  • PABA--Pan African Booksellers Association (2008) (Kampala, Uganda)
  • Pan African Writers Association (Accra, Ghana)
    Formally established in Ghana in 1992, with the support of UNESCO and the African Union. PAWA "...is made up of the 52 national writers associations on the continent, and seeks to contribute its quota to moral, cultural and intellectual renaissance in Africa." PAWA sponsors annual symposia in celebration of "International African Writers' Day" (November 7th), various workshops, special publications, etc.
    --See especially: Book Reviews ; Profiles ; and African Publishing
  • Peppercorn Books -- African Languages (Snow Camp, North Carolina)
    A US-based bookseller and publisher specializing in adult education, but also offers selected African language materials.
  • Les Éditions Phoenix (Detroit, Michigan, USA; Montréal, Canada; Dakar, Sénégal)
    "...est une société d'édition internationale créée par une équipe de Sénégalais et d'Américains et basée aux Etats-Unis...Les Editions Phoenix ont en effet acces au plus grand reseau mondial de distribution occidentale (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, PickaBook et les autres grands magasins d'Angleterre et du Canada)."
  • Présence Africaine -- Catalogue, Liens, et Evénements Spéciaux (Paris, France)
    Depuis 1949, cette maison d'édition offrait "un espace dans lequel, romanciers, nouvellistes, conteurs, essayistes, poètes et penseurs du Monde Noir peuvent enfin s'exprimer et voir circuler leurs oeuvres."
  • Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes--NEI: Catalogue de la Maison d'Edition (Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire)
  • Red Sea Press (See above: "Africa World Press and Red Sea Press")
  • Soumbala.Com (Paris, France)
    Un boutique en ligne pour les livres rares et les nouveaux titres sur l'Afrique.
  • Tsehai Publishers & Distributors (Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California)
    Tsehai specializes in publications about Ethiopia and by Ethiopian authors...including reprints of classic works of Ethiopian history.

Organizations and Conferences

Projects--Indexes & Digital Archives

  • African Activist Archive Project (African Studies Center, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan)
    The website includes galleries of documents, photographs, posters, audio and video files, and an extensive archives list for 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."
  • ABBOL--AEquatoria Book Bank On-Line = AEquatoria Bibliothèque de Base On-Line In association with the Centre Aequatoria, Mbandaka, République démocratique du Congo. (Lovenjoel, Belgium)
    'The e-books offered on this site are mainly drawn from other e-book projects, such as the Gutenberg Project.' The editors claim that ABBOL is digitalising and editing its own materials for the Book Bank.
    In late April 2006, the e-library consisted of a short selection of European travellers accounts from the 19th century and older works on the historiography of central Africa, including those on the "Lyanja" epic....in French!! See also, the much longer list of links to other Africa-related electronic texts on the Web.
  • African Digital Library -- Selected Electronic Books Collection In association with NetLibrary (Technikon South Africa Gold Fields Library and Information Centre, Florida, South Africa)
    Note: US libraries with NetLibrary subscriptions also have access to this collection.
    "[Established in 1999]...a collection of electronic books that can be accessed and used free-of-charge by any person living on the African continent [with registration]."
  • African Online Digital Library: West African Digital Resources Project (Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan)
    A website about a new digital library project (begun in 2000/2001) at Michigan State University, l'Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire, and the West African Research Center in Dakar, Senegal. The site includes thus far: materials relating to West African history and cultures mostly from the private archives of individual scholars: selected photographs, unpublished research papers and conference proceedings, field notes, and short audio files of informants and interviews with scholars.
    --See also: African Online Digital Library Projects Gallery: including Diversity & Tolerance in the Islam of West Africa.
  • African e-Journals Project (Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan)
    The website offers general information about the on-going project, access to full text archive of 11 African journals, and a searchable directory of African e-journals--with links to websites. "An initiative co-sponsored by the Association of African Universities (AAU), the African Studies Association in the USA, and Michigan State University."
    The archive includes: African Journal of Political Science, Glendora, Journal of Social Development in Africa, Transformation, Zambezia, and others.
  • African Film Library (M-Net, Cape Town, South Africa)
    An online reference directory of African films, with synopsis, film excerpts, commentaries, and film-related news. "The library consists of award-winning works from more than 80 producers including Senegalese Ousmane Sembene and Djibril Mambety, Yousef Chahine from Egypt and Haile Gerima from Ethiopia."
  • ALMA--African Language Materials Archive: A joint project of the West African Research Association and
    Title VI National Resource Centers for African Studies. (via Matrix, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan)
    • "...a multi-partner project focusing on the promotion and documentation of literature and literacy in the languages of Africa. It further serves to assist African language authors and publishers in publicizing and distributing their work."
    • See also: ALMA e-books--original site of the ALMA collection, produced by the West African Research Center (Dakar, Senegal), Columbia University, CAORC--Council of American Overseas Research Centers, and the Digital Library for International Research at The Center for Research Libraries, Chicago, Illinois; with support from the U.S. Department of Education and UNESCO. The e-books presented here are in major languages of West Africa: Bamanankan, Jula, Fula, Fulfulde, Kriolu, Mandinka, Mooré, Pulaar, and Wolof.
  • ALRP: African Language Research Project (Department of English and Modern Languages, University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, Princess Anne, Maryland)
    The site includes information on the project history, African language publications, conference/workshop proceedings, and current progress; plus a project newsletter. "From 1994 to the present the project has published level two and three readers in Yoruba, Hausa, Lingala, Sudanese Arabic, and a forthcoming reader in Igbo. Currently [in 2004], a manuscript is being developed in the Wolof language (Senegal). For the next two years funds are available for readers in Akan and Luganda. These readers are professionally published by Dunwoody Press, a division of McNeil Technologies."
  • African Studies Collection -- University of Wisconsin Digital Collections (Madison, Wisconsin)
    This site offers digitized works selected from the University's library, encompassing the Africana Digitization 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)
    -- See also: South African Voices below.
  • Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy 1719-1820 (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and the Center for the Public Domain, Durham, North Carolina)
    An online database--downloadable--to search for African heritage in Louisiana. "The Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy online search engine was designed to provide the general public free access to valuable historic records. Users can locate individual slaves who lived in Louisiana between the years of 1718 and 1820 through this easy-to-use, free, public database. Find valuable historical data from over 100,000 descriptions of slaves found in documents in Louisiana between 1718 and 1821 by searching identifiers such as gender, racial designation, or plantation location. Users can even search the origin of the slaves brought to Louisiana in the 18th and 19th centuries to work the New World."
  • Aluka -- The Struggle for Freedom in Southern Africa ; African Cultural Sites and Landscapes ; and African Plants (Ithaka, New York, New York and Princeton, New Jersey)
    A website about the project: "Aluka’s principal audience is the higher education and research community, both in Africa and around the world, including colleges, universities, research and policy centres, and cultural institutions. The materials are selected primarily with undergraduate students and their instructors in mind, but the content is also valuable to graduate students and upper-level secondary students." Funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation.
  • West African Arabic Manuscript 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.
  • ASK-DL: Africa's Sources of Knowledge Digital Library (African Language Program, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts)
    "[With funding from the US Department of Education TICFIA program since 2009, this pilot project will provide online access to]...information contained in rare handwritten and out-of-print African language documents of non-latinate scripts ; an endeavor to digitize, catalog and index collected documents in an accessible online library." The site includes sample texts in the following languages: Wolof, Bamana, Amharic, Tigrinya, Tamasheq, and Swahili.
  • Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Gallica Voyages en Afrique (Paris)
  • 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
  • Bioline Publications Abstracts, Full Text, and Document Service (Centro Referência Informação Ambiental, Brazil ; Electronic Publishing Trust for Development, UK)
    A selection of African studies journals in the medical, food, and biological sciences from Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. View the abstracts without charge; view online full texts from selected journals.
  • Center for Research Libraries--Cooperative Africana Materials Project: Slavery and Manumission Manuscripts of Timbuktu (Chicago, Illinois)
    "The Center for Research Libraries and the Cooperative Africana Materials Project (CAMP) present a collection of 19th century manuscripts relating to slavery and manumission in Timbuktu. The collection of 206 manuscripts from the Bibliothèque Commémorative Mama Haidara in Timbuktu, Mali, were loaned to John Hunwick, Professor of History and Religion, Northwestern University, with the hope that the manuscripts would receive conservation treatment and be digitized in order to make them accessible via the Web. The materials, in Arabic, provide documentation on Africans in slavery in Muslim societies."
  • Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire (London, UK)
    --Also known as "Colonial Film Database"
    "This website holds detailed information on over 6000 films showing images of life in the British colonies. Over 150 films are available for viewing online. You can search or browse for films by country, date, topic, or keyword. Over 350 of the most important films in the catalogue are presented with extensive critical notes...The Colonial Film project united universities (Birkbeck and University College London) and archives (British Film Institute, Imperial War Museum and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum) to create a new catalogue of films relating to the British Empire."
  • Columbia University Libraries and The Center for Research Libraries--Cooperative Africana Materials Project:
    West African Digitization and Preservation Training Pilot (New York)
    In April and May 2008, Columbia and other CAMP member institutions sponsored a refresher course in best practices for a senior archivist from the Archives du Sénégal. This is a brief report on the experience at Columbia.
  • Connecting-Africa (African Studies Centre, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands)
    "...a service that provides access to African research information produced in the Netherlands and elsewhere: details of Africa experts affiliated to Dutch and Belgian organizations; details of Dutch and Belgian development-related organizations, universities and research institutes; titles of published research on Africa in the Netherlands and elswhere; digital resources on Africa (full-text of publications, images and sound) in about 55 institutional repositories.
  • Cyberthèses: publication et diffusion en ligne des thèses (Lyons, France ; Montréal, Canada)
    For more information, see: Actualités
    --Selected French language theses in full text and abstracts from a project based at Université Montréal, Université de Genève, and Université Lumière de Lyon II.
  • 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)
  • Réseau Sénégalais "Droit, Ethique, Santé" (via Refer; Dakar, Sénégal)
  • e-Granary Digital Library (WiderNet Project, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
    "Through a process of garnering permissions, copying Web sites, and delivering them to intranet Web servers INSIDE our partner institutions in developing countries, we deliver millions of multimedia documents that can be instantly accessed by patrons over their local area networks at no cost."
  • ELDIS: Electronic Development and Environment Information System (Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK)
    • An indexing service provided by IDS. Papers are selected from all over the Internet based on topics in African, Asian, and Latin American studies. Documents are produced by research institutes or international organizations. Some documents are electronic versions of printed works, while others are full online documents--with citations and bibliographies. The Africa country guides provide links to Web sites, as well. Note: Some documents listed in the search are only accessible at the IDS library, University of Sussex.
    • ELDIS Home Page -- USE "Pick a topic" ; "search page" ; or, "issues page".
    • Africa country guides to Internet resources
  • Electronic journal of Africana bibliography. (Online). -- Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa Libraries, 1996-.
    "EJAB is a refereed online journal of bibliographies on any aspect of Africa, its peoples, their homes, cities, towns, districts, states, countries, regions, including social, economic sustainable development, creative literature, the arts, and the Diaspora."
  • Eritrean Print and Oral Culture (Lwam Ghebrehariat & Joyce Tam, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada)
    A digital archive of book covers and selected excerpts from publications in the field of the Eritrean literature, culture, and history, with some online folktales in English and Tigrinya, as well as sound recordings of tales and proverbs.
  • Érudit : promouvoir et diffuser la recherche = promoting and disseminating research (Montréal, Québec, Canada)
    Select "Advanced Search" or "Recherche détailée to look for open access, online full-text MA essays/mémoires de maîtrise from McGill University, Université Laval, & Université de Montréal...or journal articles published in major Canadian and French journals.
  • The Ruth First Papers (Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, UK)
    In partnership with the UWC-Robben Island Mayibuye Archives and the Centro de Estudos Africanos, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambique.
    "It will consist of at least 5,000 pages, digitised and presented as academically rigorous clusters of material, and will electronically publish two of her books currently out of print. This resource will be freely accessible worldwide, accompanied by a website with secondary material including conference items and short academic essays about First’s life and work."
  • Genocide Archive of Rwanda (Kigali Memorial Center, Kigali, Rwanda; Human Rights Documentation Initiative, University of Texas Libraries, Austin, Texas)
    The web site features information about the project, sample interview transcripts and videos. "The Genocide Archive of Rwanda is a collaborative project of the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre, Aegis Trust, and Rwanda’s National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide to document the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi."
    --See also: Voices of Rwanda below.
  • H-Africa Reviews (H-Net, Humanities & Social Sciences OnLine, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan)
    An archive of reviews of Africana books, electronic resources, exhibitions, and films since March 1995.
  • Home Pages and/or Tables of Contents of Selected African Studies Journals (H-Africa, Humanities-Net, Michigan State University, East Lansing)
  • Indiana University Libraries -- Projects (Bloomington, Indiana)
    • The Digital Somali Library
      "...provides full-text, online access to 137 books from Indiana University Bloomington's Somali collection." The site also includes a list of the digitized publications and a searchable online finding list of all publications on Somalia and in the Somali language in the library cataloged through 2008.
    • Liberian Collections Project (Archives of Traditional Music, IUL)
      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.'
    • Nuer Field Notes -- Eleanor Vandevort (Marion Francis-Wilson et al., Digital Library Program, IUL)
      The digitized book, A leopard tamed (1968), field notes, grammar, and word lists of a woman missionary in southern Sudan.
  • Indexkenya.org: Kenya Indexing Project (Nairobi, Kenya)
    This free database provides only an index to topics covered in newspapers published in the period 1994 to 2001. There are no links to online archives, but there is a document delivery option. "Indexkenya.org is an online index of articles published in Nairobi newspapers. The focus of the articles indexed includes culture, law/governance, reproductive health, and other topics about which information is difficult to obtain."
  • IFAN--Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire, Université Cheikh Anta Diop: Biens culturels africains: entrepôt de ressources documentaires de l'IFAN-CAD Réalisé en partenariat avec l'Université de Toulouse II-
    Le Mirail et le soutien financier du Fonds francophone des inforoutes et le Ministère français des affaires étrangères.     (Dakar, Sénégal)
    Un nouveau projet numérique de l'IFAN qui se sont crée avec l'application "DSpace."
  • International Documentation Network on the Great African Lakes Region = Réseau documentaire international sur la région des Grands Lacs africains (Geneva, Switzerland)
    Information about research and ordering information for documents on CD-ROM. "In the past few years, the region of the Great African Lakes has regulary appeared in the front line of current events. In spite of substantial literature dealing with the subject, a vast number of documents which are necessary for a thorough understanding of the developments in that particular region have not been made public. Since January 1996 the Network has undertaken the challenge of ensuring a wider dissemination of this so-called "grey literature". A scientific committee (fifteen scholars specialized in that area) has been gathering relevant and reliable documentation concerning the Great Lakes area. Being a non-partisan network, we attempt to ensure a fair reflection of diverse points of view. This information is compiled on a CD-ROM, and is revised several times a year."
  • International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications: African Journals On-Line (Oxford, UK)
    A tables-of-contents service, with an option for full text services through paid subscription. There is also a photocopy or document delivery service for individual journal articles of some titles. The following journals are covered: Afrique et développement=Africa Development; African Crop Science Journal; African Journal of Political Science; Bulletin of the Chemical Society of Ethiopia; CODESRIA Bulletin, Discovery and Innovation; Ghana Journal of Agricultural Sciences; Insect Science and its Applications; SINET:Ethiopian Journal of Science; and, Zimbabwe Veterinary Journal; and others.
  • The Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory (The Nelson Mandela Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa)
    • "...inaugurated on 21 September 2004, and endorsed as the core work of the Foundation in 2006. The Centre focuses on three areas of work: the Life and Time of Nelson Mandela, Dialogue for Social Justice and Nelson Mandela International Day."
    • Nelson Mandela Digital Archive Project
      This site features a photographic & video exhibition, as well as extensive selections from the digitized archive of Mandela's private papers.
      --See also: "My Moment with a Legend"
    • Nelson Mandela: 20 Years of Freedom
      An interactive web archive on Mandela's release from prison on February 11, 1990. "Users can explore archival documents, photographs as well as raw and edited news footage and other audio-visual material related to the release and the political events directly preceding and following it, much of which has not been seen by the public."
  • Medina Baay Research Association (Dr. Joseph Hill, American University in Cairo, Egypt; University of Rochester, New York, USA)
    The website includes excerpts from an archive of digitized religious texts, interviews, photographs, selected secondary readings, and other information collected by Joseph Hill and other members of the Medina Baay Research Association in Kawlax (Kaolack), Senegal. The site also includes updates on Hill's own field research. Medina Baay...is the headquarters of the 'Ibrahimiyyah' branch of the Tijaniyyah Sufi order and was founded by Ibrahim Ñas, usually called Baay Ñas in Wolof.
  • Memórias de África et do Oriente, Biblioteca Digital (Universidade de Aveiro, Centro de Estudos sobre África e do Desenvolvimento--Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, e Fundação Portugal-África, Lisboa, Portugal)
    • "...it's main aim [is the] creation of an online library of historical data available in archives, documentation centers, libraries and institutions, private organizations and individuals involved...in African countries with Portuguese as the national language (PALOP)...[and] digitalization of rare works or those works that are difficult to access..."
    • Digital collections
  • Mozambique History Net (Colin Darch, Cape Town, South Africa)
    "...to make available selected newspaper clippings and some other resources dealing with contemporary Mozambican history and presented in a thematically organised form. A high proportion of this material is in Portuguese...organised by subject, each with its own page on this website, where each document is briefly referenced, with a link to a viewable or down-loadable PDF or JPEG file."
  • National Universities Commission of Nigeria: Nigerian Virtual Library (Abuja, Nigeria)
    The website includes selected Nigerian publications in wide variety of disciplines, links to Nigerian newspapers, and information on Nigerian universities. "The National Universities Commission is a parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Education charged with the responsibilities of orderly development of universities in Nigeria."
  • Nordic Documentation on the Liberation Struggle in Southern Africa (Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala, Sweden)
    The web site features general information about various projects, conference reports, and a searchable catalog of the archives on southern Africa held in Scandinavia.
  • Northwestern University, Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies -- Special Collections and Digital Projects (Evanston, Illinois)
  • The Project for Information Access and Connectivity (Nairobi, Kenya)
    "The Project for Information Access and Connectivity (PIAC), which is sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, was established in 1998." The project, which included a pilot of the DATAD program and several surveys, was completed in 2002.
  • Projeto Cultural Dacosta (José Luiz Pereira da Costa, Dacosta Comércio Exterior Ltda., Porto Alegre, Brasil)
    This site features an extensive digital library of texts selected and translated into Portuguese by a Brazilian businessman/scholar. The texts are by historic figures of African descent, reflecting their contributions to African cultural studies, pan-Africanism, and the liberation struggles of peoples of African descent. There are also selected works by Machado de Assis--the Brazilian literary icon and a library of selected Afro-Brazilian and African music files.
  • The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library -- Digital Projects
    (New York)
    • The site provides information about this extensive research collection on global Africa, access to the online public catalog of the New York Public Library, and a variety of exhibitions and public programs.
    • Center Home Page
    • The New York Public Library Digital Gallery: Africana and Black History
      "Several thousand items ranging from historical documents and rare visual materials to contemporary photo-journalism, relating to the entirety of African American history from the 16th century to the present..."
    • The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean World (2011)
      A multi-media web site, with bibliography, essays, images, web links, and videos. "Over the course of nearly 20 centuries, millions of East Africans crossed the Indian Ocean and its several seas and adjoining bodies of water in their journey to distant lands, from Arabia and Iraq to India and Sri Lanka."
    • African Americans and American Politics (2009)
      A web site presentation with photographs and explanatory text on the history of African American politics from the 18th to the 21st century, including the 2009 presidential election of Barack Hussein Obama.
    • The Abolition of the Slave Trade
      "With the help of the essays, books, articles, maps, and illustrations gathered on this site, it becomes clear that the story of the eradication of the international slave trade to the Americas was not straightforward. It did not happen overnight because laws were passed. It was a long, arduous, and tortuous process that spanned almost nine decades."
    • In-Motion: The African-American Migration Experience
      A multi-media presentation on the history of African diaspora migrations -- includes teaching resources. "In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience presents a new interpretation of African-American history, one that focuses on the self-motivated activities of peoples of African descent to remake themselves and their worlds. Of the thirteen defining migrations that formed and transformed African America, only the transatlantic slave trade and the domestic slave trades were coerced, the eleven others were voluntary movements of resourceful and creative men and women, risk-takers in an exploitative and hostile environment. Their survival skills, efficient networks, and dynamic culture enabled them to thrive and spread, and to be at the very core of the settlement and development of the Americas."
    • Digital Schomburg: African American Women Writers of the 19th century
    • Digital Schomburg: Images of African Americans from the 19th century
    • Digital Schomburg: Studies Dedicated to Fernando Ortiz (1880-1969): A Bibliography of Afro-Cuban Culture
    • Exhibition: Harlem 1900-1940: an African American community (via University of Michigan)
    • Schomburg Center Video Oral History Gallery: Selected Clips from the Louis Armstrong Jazz Oral History Project

  • The South African History Archive (SAHA) (Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 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. The SAHA website offers online finding aids to their collections, descriptions of archival projects, highlights from public exhibitions and related events, teacher and other educational resources, online publications (free downloads with registration), as well as several "virtual exhibiitions":
  • SAHO: South African History Online (Pretoria, South Africa)
    This site offers online publications, photo and image exhibitions, brief historical summaries and biographies, and classroom suggestions (under construction). "SAHO is a peoples' history and internet-based project that consists of an open, non-partisan website linked to a schools' and community based outreach programme, which sets to build a comprehensive database on South African history and arts."
  • South African Universities -- Theses & Dissertations Catalogs and Selected Electronic Full-Text
  • South African Voices University of Wisconsin Digital Collections. (Madison, Wisconsin)
    "South African Voices is a three-volume work that includes: A Long Time Passed, Created in Olden Times, and The Way We Travelled: Oral History and Poetry. This work consists of electronic audio files and transcribed written texts of oral traditions and histories, poetry, folktales, and stories in Xhosa, Zulu, and Siswati collected, transcribed, and edited by Professor Harold Scheub.
  • Stanford University Libraries: Maps of Africa Online Humanities Digital Information Service Luna Insight Service (Stanford, California)
    "The maps --578 images-- from the Norwich Collection of Maps of Africa and Its Islands as well as the maps from the Antiquarian Maps Collection relating to Africa can be viewed online."
  • Sudan Open Archive (Rift Valley Institute, London, UK & Nairobi, Kenya)
    "The first phase of the Archive involved the digitisation of technical reports on aid and development from Operation Lifeline Sudan (1989-2005). A library of contemporary and historical literature on environmental issues was added in 2006; a collection of reports on local peace processes in 2007. They will be followed by further ethnographic writing, grammars and dictionaries of Sudanese languages, and collections of documents in Arabic."
    -- Includes an archive of e-books & documents and an extensive list of web sites
  • The Libraries of Timbuktu (via University of Oslo, Norway)
  • Tombouctou Manuscripts Project (University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa)
    • This site offers a history of the project, recent project news, information about publications, and two full text e-books. "...[The project] first conceptualised in 2002, was officially established in 2003 to research and document manuscript tradition in Africa. Over the past seven years a Project team has been involved in the study of manuscript tradition in Africa, including manuscript translation, digitalisation and historical studies of book and library traditions."
    • Timbuktu : script and scholarship: a catalogue of selected manuscripts from the exhibition. Edited by Lalou Meltzer, Lindsay Hooper, Gerald Klinghardt. Prepared by the Tombouctou Manuscripts Project and Iziko Social History Collections Department. -- Cape Town: Iziko, Museums of Cape Town; Pretoria: Department of Arts and Culture, Republic of South Africa; Timbuktu, Mali: Ahmed Baba, Institut des Hautes Etudes et de Recherchers Islamiques, 2008. 136 pages in PDF format
    • From Istanbul to Timbuktu -- Ink routes. Prepared by the Tombouctou Manuscripts Project. Cape Town: TMP, University of Cape Town, 2009. 72 pages in PDF format
  • Truth Commission Special Report (South African Broadcasting Corporation, in collaboration with The South African History Archive, Johannesburg, South Africa)
    This web site offers free access to the 87 episodes of this SABC TV news series; plus a digital document archive on the TRC, including transcripts from hearings and workshops. "Broadcast by the South African Broadcasting Corporation every week between 21 April 1996 and 29 March 1998, the 87-part 'Truth Commission Special Report' television series offers invaluable insights into the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission during this period."
  • UNESCO General History of Africa Collection, Volumes I-VIII (Paris, France)
    An open access version of the landmark series is now available in English, Arabic, Swahili, Portuguese, Fulfulde, and Hausa.
  • United Kingdom. The National Archives: Africa Through a Lens (London)
    Digitized selections from an extensive archive of photographs from British colonial administrators and travellers in Africa, 1860-1960. See the digital image collection via Flickr.com.
  • Université Cheikh Anta Diop: Département d'Histoire, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines (Dakar, Sénégal)
  • University of California Press eScholarship Editions: African Studies Published in association with California Digital Library eScholarship Program. (Berkeley, California)
    Select from Subject List: "African Studies".
    A collection of full-text, online editions of books in African studies (usually without illustrations) including:
    -- Adam, Heribert & Kobila Moodley. The opening of the apartheid mind.
    -- Butler, Jeffrey et al. The black homelands of South Africa...
    -- Crehan, Kate. The fractured community ... rural Zambia.
    -- Clancy-Smith, Julia A. Rebel and saint: Muslim notables, populist protest, colonial encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800-1904).
    -- Evans, Ivan T. Bureaucracy and race: native administration in South Africa.
    -- Fadiman, Jeffrey. When we began, there were witchmen: an oral history from Mount Kenya.
    -- Grinker, Roy Richard. Houses in the rainforest: ethnicity and inequality among farmers and foragers in central Africa.
    -- Herbst, Jeffrey. The politics of reform in Ghana, 1982-1991.
    -- Launay, Robert G. Beyond the stream: Islam and society in a West African town.
    -- Leonard, David K. African successes: four public managers of Kenyan rural development.
    -- Ntantala, Phyllis. A life's mosaic: the autobiography of ...
    -- Sharp, Lesley. The possessed and the dispossessed ... Madagascar.
    -- Schroeder, Richard A. Shady practices: agroforestry and gender politics in The Gambia.
    -- Vail, Leroy. (ed.) The creation of tribalism in southern Africa.
    -- Waltz, Susan E. Human rights and reform: changing the face of North African politics.
    -- Widner, Jennifer A. The rise of a party-state in Kenya...
    -- White, Luise. Speaking with vampires: rumor and history in colonial Africa.
  • University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Maps of Africa to 1900 University Library, Library Digital Services and Development (Urbana, Illinois)
    A searchable digital map collection based on the bibliography Maps of Africa to 1900: A Checklist of Maps in Atlases and Geographical Journals in the Collections of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (By Thomas J. Bassett & Yvette Scheven, Urbana: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 2000).
  • University of Kansas Libraries: Onitsha Market Literature--From the Bookstalls of a Nigerian Market (Lawrence, Kansas)
    "Onitsha Market Literature consists of stories, plays, advice and moral discourses published primarily in the 1960s by local presses in the lively market town of Onitsha, an important commercial site in the Igbo-speaking region of southeastern Nigeria. Twenty-one pamphlets appear here fully digitized and annotated to exemplify styles of expression found in this intriguing form of African popular literature. They are part of a unique collection of 101 pamphlets from Onitsha now held at the Spencer Research Library."
  • 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 Nigeria, Nsukka -- Open Resources Repository (Nigeria)
    The university scans and makes available on the Internet selected seminar and conference papers, journal articles, books published by UNN faculty, and UNN theses (primarily Masters' theses in various fields and some doctoral dissertations in the fields of Law or The Arts, from the 1980s to the present).
  • University of the Witwatersrand Library--Historical Papers Department: Collections Database (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 ; Records of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa ; and Traces of Truth: Documents relating to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
    --See also above: South African History Archive
  • University of Wisconsin Digital Collections. (Madison, Wisconsin)
    --Africa Focus: Sights and Sounds of a Continent consisting of an archive of photographs, links to related material, African Studies Collection (e-books), and South African Voices (life history transcripts and audio files).
  • Voices of Rwanda (Kigali, Rwanda; USA)
    The web site offers a description of the project, sample video testimonies from Rwandan genocide survivors, and related information. "Voices of Rwanda recognizes Rwandans’ need to share their stories and the value of their histories for all people. Toward that end, Voices of Rwanda has begun a campaign to film testimonies of Rwandans and to archive them, in both Rwanda and the United States."
  • 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.
  • World Digital Library on Africa -and- The Middle East and North Africa (Paris, France)
    This site offers a relatively small selection (122 items for Africa and 157 for the Middle East/North Africa) of digitized rare books, maps, and documents which can be downloaded. UNESCO, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, The Library of Congress of the USA, and many other institutions have partnered to launch this project.