African Studies Research Guide

This multi-disciplinary database provides full-text for more than 4,500 journals, including full text for more than 3,700 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles.

Covers the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Comprised of 21,000 titles from more than 5,000 international publishers. Exporting data to Reference Managers such as Mendeley, RefWorks and EndNote, tracking citations with Citation Overview/Tracker, analyzing journal performance with Journal Analyzer and alternative journal impact metrics SNIP and SJR are some of its unique features.

Africa-Wide Information is an index covering material on Africa from the 19th century to the present, including: African studies abstracts (1994- ), Africa Institute (1981- ), Southern African database (1961- ), School of Oriental and African Studies Library catalogue: Africa (1989- ), NAMLIT (19th century- ), Don Africana collection (16th century- ) Campbell collections of the University of Natal, Killie Campbell Africana Library (19th century- ), Business & industry: Africa (1994- ), Natural and cultural history Africa (1960- ), African periodicals exhibit catalogue (1997), Bibliography on contemporary African politics and development (1981-1992), International library of African music, Database of Swiss theses and dissertations (1897-1996) ; Index to South African periodicals (1987-present), the South African national bibliography (1988-present), National English Literary Museum (1990-present, retrospective to the 19th cent.), Knipkat from the Nasionale Afrikaanse Letterkunde Museum en Navorsingsentrum, Witwatersrand University Management Research Reports (1970-present), The Centre for Rural Legal Studies Database (1987 and earlier to present), South African Legal Abbreviations, and others.

Major subject areas covered include Africana Studies, Atlantic Studies, Ethnic Studies, Gender Studies, Economic Studies, Slavery and Diaspora Studies. Based on the Library Company collection that itself was an attempt to gather all printed information about this area and its history.  Includes historical narratives, social histories, maps, navigational logs, military reports, government documents, demographic studies, anthropological studies, natural histories, personal and personal memoirs. Many items published prior to 1800 are included, but the majority were published in the 19th century.

Notable works included are written by Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, Steve Biko, Buchi Emecheta, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Doris Lessing, Nelson Mandela, Dambudzo Marechera, Christopher Okigbo, Okot Bitek, and Tayeb Salih.

Includes letters, diplomatic dispatches, reports, trial papers, activists’ biographies and first-hand accounts.

Created from the holdings of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Black Authors, 1556-1922. Major subject areas addressed in Black Authors include Literature, Ethnic History, Colonialism, Gender Studies, Slavery, and Diaspora Studies. Authors included are Leo Africanus, Ignatius Sancho, Benjamin Banneker, Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, David Ruggles, William Wells Brown, Solomon Northrup, Harriet Wilson, Harriet Jacobs, Alexander Crummell, Martin Delany, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Josiah Henson, Frederick Douglass, Bethany Veney, Paul Laurence Dunbar, W.E.B. Du Bois, Charles W. Chestnutt, Booker T. Washington, James Weldon Johnson, and hundreds of others.

In addition to fiction, the database includes complete runs of selected literary magazines, such as Kyk-Over-Al and The Beacon.

Includes historical context and resources, representing both personal and institutional perspectives, for the growing fields of border(land) studies and migration studies, as well as history, law, politics, diplomacy, area and global studies, anthropology, medicine, the arts, and more. At completion, the collection will include 100,000 pages of text, 175 hours of video, and 1,000 images

The earliest documents in this collection are from the seventeenth century but the majority of the material originates from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The material covering North America covers the varied frontier regions from fur trappers in Canada to cowboys in Texas and government in Baja California. It is divided into the frontier regions of the American East, the American Midwest, the American Southwest, California & Mexico and Canada. It covers the exploration of these regions followed by trade with Native peoples, colonial rivalries, expansion of government and new nations and the final settlement and 'closing' of the frontier.

Africa is mainly represented by its frontiers of the south with the British colonial expansion into modern day South Africa. There is also material relating to the exploration of West Africa and the colonial administration of Lagos.

The beginnings of European Australia and New Zealand are covered by British government documents, starting with Arthur Phillip and the penal colony at Sydney. The frontiers of other parts of Australia are also covered by documents from the UK National Archives and some material from Australian archives.

Finally, there is some material relating to Central America, specifically British Honduras (Belize), in the form of the George Arthur Papers. George Arthur’s career here relates to the other regions featured here as he spent time on the Canadian and Australian frontiers.