Africana Library Catalogs & Archives


  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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."
  • ACA2K--Access to Knowledge in Africa: The Role of Copyright (2010)  -- Claremont, South Africa : Juta and Company Ltd.  ; Toronto, Canada : IDRC, 2010.
    • The open access, electronic book version of a 2010 final report. "[ACA2K]...is probing the relationship between national copyright environments and access to knowledge in African countries. This project, supported by Canada's IDRC and South Africa's Shuttleworth Foundation, and managed by the Wits University LINK Centre in Johannesburg, begun in October 2007 with legal researchers in five African countries (Egypt, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda) preparing initial 'environmental scans' of the copyright contexts in their countries."
  • "African Digital Research Repositories: Survey Report." (2016). By Anna de Mutiis and Stephanie Kitchen. Originally published in Africa Bibliography (2015) ; via International African Institute, London, UK.
    18 pages in PDF format
    --See also: December 2022 Update
  • African Music Archives = Archiv für die Musik Afrikas (Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien, Johann Gutenberg, Universität Mainz, Germany)
    "...founded in 1991, contains a collection of modern African music which is unique in Germany. It includes shellacs and vinyl-records, audio- and videotapes, CD’s and DVD’s."
  • 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."
  • 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." (***This special catalog of records also includes posters held by Michigan State University Libraries.)
  • African Presidential Archives and Research Center at Boston University (Boston, Massachusetts)
    The website provides general information about the center program, news about events, highlights from the visits by African presidents and others, a State of Africa Annual Report, and resource links on 13 African countries.
  • 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)
  • Ahmadu Bello University: Arewa House: Centre for Historical Documentation and Research (Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria)
    The web site offers general information about the center, its staff, and the center's archive and library.
    NOTE: The library includes a major Arabic language/Ajami script manuscripts collection.
  • American Committee on Africa Records, 1948-1987. Amistad Research Center. (Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana) -- via University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
    A detailed finding aid for the collection which "documents the foundation and development of a U.S.-based organization dedicated to support of anti-apartheid and anti-colonial movements throughout Africa during the mid to late 20th century."
  • American Geographical Society Library--Digital Photo Archive: Africa (University of Wisconsin Libraries, Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
    "A selection of images from the extensive photographic holdings of the American Geographical Society (AGS) Library. Images are drawn from several collections, including Richard U. Light and Mary (Light) Meader Collection, the Harrison Forman collection, and the Edna Schaus Sorensen and Clarence W. Sorensen Collection."
  • Anti-Apartheid Movement: Forward to Freedom--The History of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1959-1994 (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, UK)
    A companion web site to the AAM archival collection held by the Bodleian Library at Oxford, featuring excerpts in text, image, and video formats. "...tells the story of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement and its campaigns to support the people of South Africa in their fight against apartheid. The AAM also campaigned for freedom for Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Angola, and against South Africa’s attacks on its neighbours."
  • 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 ANMS database is searchable in English or in Arabic.
  • 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 de Madagascar (Antananarivo)
  • Archives Nationales du Sénégal (Dakar, Sénégal)
    -- Veuillez voir aussi: L'information de contact, via Piaf--Portail international archivistique francophone
  • Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique (Maputo, Mozambique)
  • Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (Portugal) (Lisbon, Portugal)
    This site --in Portuguese-- provides descriptions of the collections and contact information only.
    --Search for digitized historical documents: Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo
  • Bibliothèque nationale du Mali (Bamako)
  • Binghamton University Libraries--Special Collections: The Haggerty Collection of French Colonial History  (Binghamton, New York)
  • 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."
  • Black Cultural Archives (Brixton, London, UK)
    [Since 1981] "We use our mission to collect, preserve and celebrate the histories of people of African and Caribbean descent in the UK and to inspire and give strength to individuals, communities and society...At our HQ we run a series of gallery exhibitions, educational programmes and public engagement events. We provide free access to our unique set of archives, museum objects and reference library...
    The BCA catalog contains over 3,500 records across 41 collections reflecting the history and presence of African and Caribbean communities in Britain. These include personal papers, organisational records, ephemera, photographs and periodicals, library references and the object collections."
    --See especially: Collections
  • 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)
    Very brief description and contact information. Search the CUNY--Brooklyn College online catalog.
  • CAMES-Conseil africain et malgache pour l'enseignement supérieur---Bibliothèque numérique (2012) (Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso)
    Une petite archive de thèses et mémoires, en plus des articles qui sont parus dans deux revues du CAMES pour les pays du réseau universitaire francophone en Afrique
  • CAMP: Cooperative Africana Materials Project (Center for Research Libraries, Chicago)
  • Cataloque collectif des périodiques Caraïbe-Amazonie -- Les Bibliothèques de la Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyane (Fort de France, Martinique, France)
  • 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."
  • Chatham House -- Library. formerly The Royal Institute of International Affairs. (London, UK)
    General information and select lists of recently acquired publications.
  • 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."
  • Connecting-Africa (2008-) (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.
  • Côte d'Ivoire: Archives coloniales d'Abidjan, Série EE: Affaires politiques (Vincent Hiribarren, King's College, London et Jean-Pierre Bat, Archives nationales de France, Paris)
    "Ce site est dédié aux archives coloniales de Côte d’Ivoire conservées à Abidjan aux Archives nationales de Côte d’Ivoire. Il est plus spécifiquement consacré à la série EE, c’est-à-dire au service des Affaires politiques du gouvernement colonial de Côte d’Ivoire."
  • DATAD: Database of African Theses and Dissertations = La base de donnée sur les thèses et mémoires africaines. (Association of African Universities, Accra, Ghana)
    • A pilot project currently under way by the AAU, following a feasibility study and a series of meetings.
      ***NOTE: As of July 2023, only a handful of institutional repositories in Ghana and Nigeria are participating.
  • Directory of Research Data Repositories in Africa (2017) (UK)
    "...developed by Chevening Research Fellow Oluwaseun Obasola in 2017 with support from Chevening and the British Library in the United Kingdom. DODRIA provides links to data portals, brief description of each portal, publishing organisations, areas covered and access policies (open, licensed and enclaved data) on available datasets from each country in Africa."
  • 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)
  • Durham University Library: Sudan Archive (UK)
    A detailed description of the collection at Durham University, UK. "The Archive was founded in 1957 to collect and preserve the papers of administrators and others who had served or lived in the Sudan during the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium. It contains official, semi-official and private papers which document in considerable detail the Sudan under Mahdist and Condominium rule for the period 1883-1956, with some material from the post-independence period. It includes a substantial quantity of papers relating to Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, Transjordan, Syria andAfrican states bordering on the Sudan."
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • ESARBICA--Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Branch (International Council on Archives, Paris, France)
    • This site offers very basic information on the organization, a recent list of active individual members, and links to member institutions. "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."
  • Ethiopian National Archives and Library (Addis Ababa)
    General information about collections and services; contact information; plus:
    -- National bibliography of Ethiopia. (Online): 2005-2006 -- Addis Ababa: Ethiopian National Archives and Library Agency ; Ethiopia, Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
  • 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
  • Europeana--The Collections (The Hague, The Netherlands)
    This searchable website offers acces to digitized books, maps, and other items held by many archives and libraries in the UK and Europe, as well as online exhibitions and blog articles.
  • Ford Foundation International Fellowships Archive, Columbia University and Thesis Library (New York, USA)
    The digital components of a larger repository of the Ford Foundation's International Fellowship program, 2001 to 2013. About 33% of the fellows were from Africa and the Middle East. "...a decade-long program that offered advanced study opportunities to more than 4,300 social justice leaders from the world’s most vulnerable populations in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Russia."
    --See also: Summary guide to the IFP Records at Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscripts Library.
    -- Plus: IFP Alumni Tracking Study, Report 1. (April 2016) 36 pages in PDF format (via Institute of International Education, New York, USA)
  • France. Archives de: Centre des Archives d'Outre Mer. (Aix-en-Provence, France)
  • France. Bibliothèque nationale de France: Gallica-Bibliothèque numérique (Paris, France)
  • France. Bibliothèques de la Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyane -- Périodiques
  • 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
  • See also: Binghamton University Libraries--Special Collection on French Colonial History above

  • Germany. Kolonialbibliothek in der Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt, Germany)
    • A searchable collection of digitizted documents and images from the German colonial era, including 50,000-70,000 historical photographs from the German colonial empire in Africa and Oceania.
      --See especially: Koloniales Bildarchiv
  • Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples (Department of History, York University, Toronto, Canada)
  • Gazettes.Africa (Laws.Africa and AfricanLII, Cape Town, South Africa)
    A digital library of government gazettes from 19 African countries, dating from the 1970s to the present.
  • Indiana University Libraries: Liberian Collections--Archives Online (Bloomington, Indiana)
    This website provides information about the project, searchable inventory lists/finding aids for 30 collections--some digitized, including Liberian government archives, presidential papers, and related information. 'The collections include historical and ethnographic documents, newspapers, government publications, correspondence, books, journals, dissertations, maps, slides, negatives, photographs, audio & video tapes, etc.'
    --See also: Liberian Photograph Collections, 1940s to present
  • International African Institute, University of London: African Digital Research Repositories, August 2021. School of Oriental & African Studies. (London, UK)
  • International Institute of Social History -- Africa Collections (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
  • International Mission Photography Archive (See University of Southern California below)
  • 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.
  • 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 -- Guides
    (Syracuse, New York)
    The list of document titles and microfilm reel numbers; plus visitor information. "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."
  • 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)
    --See also: Saving Nigeria's Islamic Manuscript Heritage below
  • The Nelson Mandela Foundation (Cape Town, South Africa)
    • Nelson Mandela Digital Archive Project (Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, Cape Town)
      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 (Cape Town, South Africa)
      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."
  • 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
  • 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."
  • Mozambique History Net (2011) (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."
  • Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale = Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren, Belgique)
  • 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.
  • National Archives of Zambia (Lusaka)
    This site features general information for researchers/visitors, a few sample photos and other images, and recent news about the archives.
  • NiZA: Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa---Library, Informaton & Documentation Centre (2008) (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
    • This ARCHIVED web site offers general information about NiZA, news summaries from Southern Africa, and NiZA publications based on research or conference proceedings. "NiZA is a politically independent organisation for the promotion of democracy in Southern Africa. It was founded in 1997 out of the merger of three anti-apartheid organisations: the Holland Committee on Southern Africa, the Dutch Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Eduardo Mondlane Foundation. ...Power in the region is becoming more and more centralised, violence and poverty are on the increase, and AIDS is spreading. Joining with those who actively seek solutions to these problems, NiZA now expresses its commitment through a new form of solidarity."
    • For more recent information on the collections, see: International Institute of Social History above
  • Nigerian National Archives, Kaduna (Nigeria)
    --See especially: List of Records

  • Saving Nigeria's Islamic Manuscript Heritage (2008-2009) (Michaelle Biddle, Head, Preservation Services, Wesleyan University Library, Middletown, Connecticut)
    A report on a 2008 research tour of Islamic manuscript collections in Northern Nigeria.
    --See also: "Modibbo Ahmadu Fufore collection" report and "Conservation in a Box: a Primer"
  • Norman Miller Archive (Norwich, Vermont)
    "...a free-to-use collection of print materials from Eastern Africa, and film and photo materials from Afghanistan, Bolivia, China, Kenya, and Taiwan. Norman Miller (1933-) is one of the first American field workers who spent long periods of time in remote regions of Kenya and Tanzania, beginning in the British colonial era."
    --See especially: "Guide to The Norman Miller Archives at The Smithsonian Institution and at Michigan State University." Edited by Franny Eanet and Jessica Achberger. (2019) 74 pages in PDF format.
  • Northwestern University, Melville J. Herskovits Library--Special Collections (Evanston, Illinois)
  • Princeton University:  Princeton Ethiopian, Eritrean and Egyptian Miracles of Mary Project (Princeton, New Jersey)
    "PEMM, a digital humanities project, is a comprehensive resource for the 1,000+ miracle stories and the 2,500+ images painted of the Virgin Mary in these African countries, and preserved in Geʿez between 1300 and the present......You can also learn about over 950 Täˀammərä Maryam manuscripts, from over 100 repositories around the world...with access to 'digital copies'...including manuscripts from Princeton’s Rare Books and Special Collections."
  • Princeton University Library, Manuscript Division: George Padmore Collection, 1933-1945 (Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey)
  • 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."
      • Lovedale Press Collection
        Includes manuscripts and published works of Black authors including AC Jordan, HIE Dhlomo, DDT Jabavu, JJR Jolobe, SEK Mqhayi, HM Ndawo, AZ Ngani, ST Plaatje, GB Sinxo, TB Soga, and Victoria Swaartbooi; plus: tonic sol-fa and staff notation scores of such composers as MM Moerane, RT Caluza, E Sontoga, EAJ Monaisa, and B Tyamzashe.
    • Electronic Theses and Dissertations Initiative
      Hundreds of Masters' and Ph.D. theses --mostly in the sciences and social sciences-- are available in full text, PDF format.
  • 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..."
  • SEALS Digital Commons (Southeast Academic Libraries System, South Africa)
    A consortium of academic libraries in South Africa, providing central access to digital special collections: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University ; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University: Archives and Exhibition Centre ; Rhodes University Archives ; Rhodes University Digital Commons ; Rhodes University: Cory Library ; Rhodes University: International Library of African Music (ILAM) ; Rhodes University: Margaret Smith Library ; University of Fort Hare Institutional Repository ; University of Fort Hare: National Heritage and Cultural Studies Centre ; and, Walter Sisulu University.
  • Slave Voyages -- The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (Rice University, Houston, Texas; Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia)
    The site provides free access to selected data on thousands of slave ship voyages; plus scholarly essays, illustrations, animated features, and maps. The latest version (2020) includes the "Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database" ; "Intra-American Slave Trade Database" ; "African Names Database" ; and, "Image Galleries". "[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..."
  • 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.
  • Tahrir Documents (USA; Cairo, Egypt)
    Edited by Cameron Hu, Levi Thompson, Elias Saba, and Emily Drumsta: "Initiated in March 2011, Tahrir Documents is an ongoing effort to archive and translate activist papers from the 2011 Egyptian uprising and its aftermath. Materials are collected from demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and published in complete English translation alongside scans of the original documents [in Arabic]. The project is not affiliated with any political organization, Egyptian or otherwise."
  • United Republic of Tanzania. President's Office: Records and Archives Management Division=Idara ya Kumbukumbu na Nyaraka za Taifa (Dar es Salaam)
    General information about the National Archives of Tanzania, its organization, and services.
    --See also: Conference papers -and- Reports, including: The National Archives of Tanzania Fifty Years After Wright’s Report on the Government Records and Public Archives of Tanganyika, (2012) By Charles Magaya and James Lowry.
    Julius Nyerere: a biography (1961) by George Dunheved.
  • Timbuktu--Mali on the Internet
  •  

  • United Kingdom, The National Archives (Kew, Richmond, Surrey)
  • UNESCO--United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Paris, France)
  • Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Bibliothèque Universitaire (Dakar, Sénégal)
    Bibliothèque Numérique Université Cheikh Anta Diop
    Remarquez: en raison de la capacité du serveur, il se peut qu'on attende un petit moment pour accéder aux documents. "La bibliothèque numérique comprend plusieurs collections de documents: les thèses et les mémoires déposés à la bibliothèque, depuis la création de l'université le 24 février 1957 ; des articles publiés par les enseignants et chercheurs de l'Université; des publications de l'Université; des Ouvrages rares et précieux."
  • University of Cambridge : African Studies Library, Archives and Special Collections (Cambridge, UK)
    The archival collections on Africa at Cambridge include selected issues of the Church Missionary Intelligencer, Donald Anthony Low Papers (esp. Uganda), Mary Margaret Louise Pirouet Papers (esp. Uganda), Cherry Gertzel (Uganda), G.I. Jones (Nigeria), and Eridadi M.K. Mulira Papers (Uganda). This web site offers mostly finding aids for each of these collections, digitized versions of the CM Intelligencer, as well as the Mulira papers, and links to other Africa-related distinctive materials discoverable through the university library's catalog.
  • University of Cape Town Libraries, Special Collections -- Manuscripts & Archives (Cape Town, South Africa)
    "This department [at UCT] has an extensive collection of original research material relating to the political, social, cultural and economic history of the Western Cape. Subjects covered include art, music, education, literature and language, botany, politics and architecture." The web site includes online guides to the collections, see especially:
    -- Finding Aids
  • University of Florida Libraries: African Studies---Rare Books, Archives, & Manuscripts (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.
  • 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 Illinois, Urbana-Champaign -- Africana Digital Projects
  • 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, Senate House Libraries -- Archives and Manuscripts Online Catalogue (London, UK)
  • University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies: Borno and Old Kanembu Islamic Manuscripts (London, UK)
    "...originates from Qur’anic manuscripts photographed by David Bivar in 1950s and donated to the SOAS Library in 2003. The initial collection consisted of four manuscripts represented by 230 folios in photographic and microfilm form, all subsequently digitised in 2005. In 2005-2007, in the course of fieldwork conducted by Dmitry Bondarev and Abba Isa Tijani in northern Nigeria, and in 2009-2013 by Dmitry Bondarev in Nigeria, Niger and the Republic of Chad, the corpus of digitised manuscripts was substantially increased to more than 5,000 folios."
  • University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies: Swahili Manuscripts Project (London, UK)
    • A digitized selection from the SOAS archives. "The collection includes about 450 manuscripts dating from 1790 to the late 20th century. The SOAS manuscripts originate from the Swahili coast and island archipelagos, in particular from Kilwa, Lamu, Mombasa, Pate, Siu and Zanzibar. The earliest manuscripts were collected in 19th century Mombasa by the scholar and member of the Church Missionary Society William Taylor and subsequently by scholars, editors and academics (including JWT Allen, William Hitchen, Jan Knappert, Alice Werner, Wilfred Whiteley, and Sheikh Yahya Ali Omar). SOAS Library acquired its first Swahili manuscript in 1920 and has continued to acquire manuscripts whenever possible since."
  • University of Nigeria, Nsukka -- Research Documents (Nigeria)
    The university scans and makes available on the Internet hundreds of seminar and conference papers, journal articles, selected books 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 Southern California Libraries, Digital Library (Los Angeles)
    • Emerging Nationalism in Portuguese Africa, 1959-1965
      Digitized selections in "open access" from the Ronald H. Chilcote Papers held on microfilm: documentary ephemera on emerging nationalism in Portuguese Africa. Emphasis is on materials originating from the nationalist organizations of Angola and Mozambique with lesser amounts on the Cape Verde Islands, Guinea-Biasau, and Sao Tome and Principe. Also included are copies of United Nations documents relating to Portuguese Africa.
    • International Mission Photography Archive, c1860-1960
      "...offers historical images from Protestant and Catholic missionary collections in Britain, Norway, Germany, France, Switzerland, and the United States. The photographs, which range in time from the middle of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, offer a visual record of missionary activities and experiences in Africa, China, Madagascar, India, Papua-New Guinea, and the Caribbean."
  • 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 ; South African History Archive; and the Records of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.
  • University of Zambia Research Repository Online (Lusaka, Zambia)
    A digital archive of knowledge production at the university, including conference papers, technical reports, and theses and dissertations.
  • Fundação Pierre Verger (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil)
    The official web site --in English, French, and Portuguese-- for the archive of the famous French-born photographer Pierre Verger (1902-1996), who visually documented the peoples and cultures of West and Central Africa and the African diaspora in the Americas--especially Brazil--during the 20th century. The site includes an extensive online photographic collection, information about the foundation's cultural center and Verger's archive in Salvador, and a bibliography on Verger's publications.
  • 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.
  • Zanzibar Department of Archives, Museums and Antiquities (Tanzania)
    This official site features general information for the visitor/researcher, with brief descriptions of the collections and a few photos.
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