African Studies Research Guide

The African Studies Librarian position is currently vacant, limiting our ability to provide reference and research support to the archival collections. For this reason, the Liberian Collections are currently closed for research.   

Please email the African Studies Collection (afstlib @ indiana . edu) for any questions you may have about access to the archival collections.

Thank you.

COLLECTION HISTORY

During the early 1990s, Ruth Stone, then director of the Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music (ATM), began amassing a collection of documents and other related materials on Liberia from fellow scholars in the field. The idea of the ATM being a center for Liberian Studies was not yet born, but Dr. Stone, a Liberia specialist, made good use of the generosity of her colleagues in developing this collection. Early deposits of Liberian materials came from William Siegmann, Jane Martin, Jeanette Carter, and John and Judy Gay, creating an informal, but quickly growing collection. Initially, these donations arrived alongside the audio and video recordings that are the primary format of the ATM’s collections. As these non-AV documents acquired a critical mass, the possibility of creating an independent repository of the materials on Liberia arose.

The IU Liberian Collections was formally established as an IU organization in 2002 when Dr. Verlon Stone became the Coordinator of the IULC. The IULC became part of the IU Libraries African Studies Collection in mid 2013. The complete collections consist of historical and ethnographic documents, newspapers, government publications, books, journals, dissertations, maps, slides, negatives, photographs, microfilms, audio and video tapes, artifacts and memorabilia. Currently, the collections are being processed and made ready for public access and study through the internet and at the IU Libraries' African Studies Collection.

IU’s Liberian Collections include historical and ethnographic documents, newspapers, government publications, books, journals, dissertations, maps, slides, negatives, photographs, microfilms, audio & video tapes, artifacts, and memorabilia. The Liberian Collections at IU Bloomington is now split between two campus repositories. The Archives of Traditional Music holds the audiovisual portions of collections, with some paper documentation for those audiovisual collections. Other materials can be found within the IU Libraries Liberian Collections outlined below.

ARCHIVES ONLINE

Four core collections of the Liberian Collections  are the Svend E. Holsoe Collection, the William V. S. Tubman Collection, the Warren L. D'Azevedo Collection and the 20,000 Liberian Newspaper Collection. More information about these and other collections related to Liberia, including descriptions and access information can be found at Archives Online. 

IMAGE COLLECTIONS ONLINE

Indiana University Liberian Photograph Collections

The Liberian Collections Photograph Collections hold over 30,000 images from the 1940s to the present. Photographers include Liberian and American government officials and employees, private citizens, missionaries, development workers, concessions employees and ethnographic researchers.

A Liberian Journey: Loring Whitman Collection

A Liberian Journey is a collaborative project undertaken by the Center for National Documents and Records Agency in Liberia, the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, Indiana University Liberian Collections, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison through a generous grant from the National Science Foundation. In 1926, the Liberian government granted Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. a ninety-nine year lease on up to one million acres of land for the establishment of a large rubber plantation. To help the company understand the conditions and challenges it faced, Firestone sponsored a Harvard team of scientists and physicians to conduct a four-month-long biological and medical survey of Liberia’s interior.  Loring Whitman, a Harvard medical student, served as the expedition's official photographer. Whitman "took most of the expedition’s still photos with a Graflex 4”x 5” sheet-film camera. This collection contains nearly 600 images of Liberian people, places and activities. Because the expedition’s purpose was scientific, there are many documentary images of birds, mammals, snakes and insects as well as the medical conditions encountered."

ARCHIVES OF TRADITIONAL MUSIC

The Archives of Traditional Music (ATM) holds the audiovisual portions of the Liberian Collections, including some paper documentation for these collections. A list of the cataloged ATM material relating to Liberia can be found HERE.