AFRI A650 Interdisciplinary Research Methods in African Studies

More information about these and other collections can be found at Archives Online and Image Collections Online.

The Liberian Collections comprise a diverse range of materials including audio music recordings, historical and ethnographic documents. The constitutive collections are stored in over 500 boxes at the Auxiliary Library Facility. Some audio materials are now available by appointment to scholars at the ATM Listening Library, and some print materials can be requested via IUCAT for use in the Archives Reading Room. As the materials are processed and indexed, more will be made available for research use. The core collections of the Liberian Collections are linked below.

The Liberian Collections Photograph Collections consist of 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. The core Liberian Collections photograph collections are linked below.

Special Collections libraries like the Lilly Library at IU are different from other libraries. They are places where you can get in touch with the past and examine books and manuscripts in their original physical forms. Rather than reading what someone else has said about the past, you can explore it for yourself.

Here are just a few of the types of research you can do at the Lilly Library:

• Study great works of literature and history in their original form. See what books looked like when they were first published and experience them as their very first readers saw them.
• Study the history of publication and reading practices.
• See how books have been changed (rebound, physically altered, written in) over time. Study provenance and the chain of ownership.
• Uncover the writing process of famous writers through drafts and other manuscript material.
• View one-of-a-kind items such as letters, diaries, journals, drawings, and photographs in the manuscript collections.