African Studies

African Studies collections at UC Berkeley comprise nearly 200,000 volumes.The Gardner (Main) Stacks of the Doe Library are the principal location for social science and humanities titles covering Africana. Titles are also located in over 20 subject specialty, affiliated libraries and other units.

Summary information about these holdings can be found under Africana Library Collections: A Guide. UC Berkeley's African Studies Collections cover sub-Saharan countries and include many publications from adjacent islands. The Library's Islamica Collections embrace materials from North Africa. 

You can suggest items that the Library should consider purchasing. Use the Purchase Recommendation form to submit your suggestion.

ALC Meeting Schedule & Information

UC Berkeley will be hosting the Africana Librarians Council and Cooperative Africana Materials Project Meetings Thursday April 25 to Saturday April 27th, 2013.  Please visit the meeting website above for more information.

Center for African Studies

Berkeley Language Center

Department of African American Studies

Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthorpology, Africa Collection

OskiCat
Finds materials related to your topic including books, government publications, and audio and video recordings in the libraries of UC Berkeley. OskiCat will show you the location and availability of the items that we own.  Does not include Law Library holdings.

Melvyl
Locates titles found at other campuses in the UC system. Melvyl also allows you to expand your search to libraries worldwide. Clicking on the REQUEST button in the detailed view of a catalog record prompt you to fill out a form to request the item through our Interlibrary Loan office. Requires Proxy login for when accessing off-campus.

WorldCat on FirstSearch
Another catalog to access records of materials in libraries worldwide.  It can be used for interlibrary loan requests.  Good for advanced researchers.

• ebrary
  Database of more than 37,000 complete e-books covering 16 key subject areas including: business and economics, computers and IT, literature and linguistics, history, political science, and more. Note : for instructions on how to install the ebrary reader see Getting started with ebrary. These e-books are also listed in OskiCat and Melvyl.
  
• Springer Electronic Book Package
  Includes nearly 20,000 Springer e-books from every scientific discipline and many social sciences.
  
• Wiley Online Library Ebook Collection
  Over 950 books included with recent publication dates. The collection includes books in the life, health and physical sciences, social science, and the humanities. Exclusions to the collection are textbooks, major reference works, professional and trade titles and consumer books.
  
• World Bank e-Library
  Features more than 1,200 full-text World Bank publications. Topics covered include: economics and finance, public policy, education, international development, technology, poverty, gender, the environment, and more.
  
• Google Book Search
  Searches the full text of books on many subjects, including some from the University of California libraries. The full text of a book can be displayed only if the book is out of copyright (generally, published before 1923) or if the copyright holder has given permission. Entries include links to "Find this book in a library". This system is still in "beta" stage, so results may vary as Google makes changes in its programming.
  
• HathiTrust
  Pronounced "hah-tee", this cooperative system contains millions of books scanned from UC and other major research libraries, including those digitized by Google and the Internet Archive. Search on information about the book (such as author or title), or words in the text. Full text is available for items that are not protected by copyright. Items in the HathiTrust catalog can be grouped into collections and shared online. For details, see the FAQ page.
  
• Dissertations and Theses (Dissertation Abstracts)
  Indexes graduate dissertations from over 1,000 North American, and selected European, graduate schools and universities. Dissertations published since 1980, and master's theses since 1988, include brief abstracts written by the authors. Offers full text of most of the dissertations added since 1997.
  
• eScholarship: University of California, Berkeley
  eScholarship provides a suite of open access, scholarly publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic research platform to scholars worldwide
  
• UC Press E-Books Collection (eScholarship Editions)
  1,400 online titles from the University of California Press covering a wide range of subjects. About 30% of the UC Press books, both in print and out-of-print are represented in this collection.
  

• Africa-Wide NiPAD
  Comprehensive database covering journals, magazines, newspapers, broadcasts, books and more on all aspects of Africa including politics, history, economics, literature, music and natural sciences. Many African publications included.
  
• allAfrica.com
  Contains over 700,000 articles from 120 news publications throughout Africa. Also includes press releases and documents from 200 governments and non-governmental organizations in and outside of Africa. Roughly 30% of articles are in French.
  
• JSTOR
  Includes over 1,000 scholarly journals with access to more than 2 million articles, most with full-text. The full-text for articles from the past 3 to 5 years is linked to externally.
  
• Quarterly Index to Africana Periodical Literature
  Indexes over 300 selected scholarly periodicals acquired regularly from 29 African countries by the Library of Congress Nairobi office. Also includes selected publications of non-governmental organizations, covering a wide range of topics.
  
• AnthroSource
  A complete electronic archive covering 11 widely-read American Anthropological Association (AAA) journals (American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Anthropology and Humanism, Archeological Publications of the American Anthropological Association, Cultural Anthropology, Ethos, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, NAPA bulletin and PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review). Other AAA journals are available.
  
• Bibliography of Slavery and World Slavery
  A searchable database of references to over 25,000 scholarly works in all academic disciplines and in all western European languages on slavery and slaving throughout the world. It includes most known print and digital materials published since 1900 covering historical and modern times.
  
• Black Studies Center (BSC)
  Includes journal article, book, text, and newspaper collections covering African Diaspora and African American Studies.
  
• eHRAF World Cultures
  Covers mostly primary source material on cultures or societies representing all major areas of the world. Includes many rare sources as well as English translations of foreign texts.
  
• Historical Abstracts
  Indexes over 2,000 journals, as well as historical book reviews and dissertations, published worldwide about all aspects of world history (excluding US and Canada) from 1450 to the present. Articles covered were written from 1954 to the present
  
• Index Islamicus
  Literature on Islam, the Middle East and the Muslim world is the focus. Over 3,000 journals are monitored for inclusion in the database, together with conference proceedings, monographs, multi-authored works and book reviews. Journals and books are indexed down to the article and chapter level.
  
• Project MUSE
  Over 250 scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences available full-text. Topics include literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics and many others.
  
• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
  Indexes books, journals, and dissertations within the field of political science and related to international relations, law and politics, political economy, public administration, and public policy.
  

• African Studies Collection
  Collection of e-books from the Leiden University's (Netherlands) African Studies Collection.
  
• African Writers Series
  Heinemann's African Writers Series includes works from the canon of African 20th century literature including stories, drama, poetry and other literary works.
  
• African Journal Archive
  A retrospective digitization project of full-text journal articles published in Africa. Includes journals covering the Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities, providing access to a multi-disciplinary, multi-country digital archive of Africa's research and cultural heritage contained in its journal literature. Journal articles hosted on the Archive extend back to the first issue (if available) and end with the last pre-current issue (determined by the publisher). The site includes over 700 issues of journal archives of academic, scholarly, institutional, museums, and professional research organizations in Africa.
  
• Black Drama
  Contains the full text of 1,200 plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than by more 100 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. The database is includes drama of the Harlem Renaissance and drama, the Black Arts Movement and 20th century African and Caribbean drama.
  
• Black Drama, 2nd edition
  Covers almost 1,500 plays by more than 200 playwrights. Includes information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. Also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. The plays have been selected using leading bibliographies and with the editorial advice of James V. Hatch, co-author with Errol G. Hill of A History of African American Theatre. Complements the other Alexander Street Press database Black Drama,(first edition).
  
• Leiden University Repository
  Includes free electronic academic publications by Leiden researchers, dissertations, special lectures, and other works. Includes publications from the Leiden African Studies Centre and other Leiden Africanists, the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), and the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM).
  
• Nordic Africa Institute Publications
  A free, open access online archive to books, research reports, conference proceedings, and journal articles produced and published by the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI). Publications cover mainly the Social Sciences within African Studies. Over half of the materials indexed are available full-text, covering the 1960s to current, with the majority in English.
  

• African Newspapers (from the World Newspaper Archive)
  Includes over 60 full-text searchable newspapers published in Sub-Saharan Africa prior to 1923. Most titles are in English, with some coverage in African and other European languages.
  
• Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966
  From coastal trading in the early nineteenth century, through the Conference of Berlin of 1884 and the subsequent Scramble for Africa, to the abuses of the Congo Free State, fights against tropical disease, Italy's defeat by the Abyssinians, World War II, apartheid in South Africa and colonial moves towards independence, the documents in this resource cover the whole of the modern period of European colonization of the continent. The resource also includes a gallery of maps. Part of a larger series of documents issued by the British Government. This collection originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These documents range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All items marked "Confidential Print" were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet, and to heads of British missions abroad.
  
• David Rumsey Map Collection
  Contains to date over 8,000 maps online and focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North and South America cartographic history materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia and Africa are also represented.
  
• Digital Innovation South Africa (DISA)
  A free online scholarly resource primarily covering the anti-apartheid liberation struggles in Southern Africa from 1950 to 1994. Includes primary and some secondary resources from books and journals to photographs, pamphlets, oral histories and correspondences for researching Southern African history, politics, and society.
  
• Empire Online
  Includes 70,000 images of original manuscript and printed documents to support study and research in the field of colonial and empire studies. Five sections include: Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class, Imperialism and Colonialism, c. 1607-1969 (coming soon). In addition to original documents, this database contains scholarly essays and analysis.
  
• Ethnographic Video Online
  A growing collection (currently more than 400 titles) of classic and contemporary ethnographic films, with wide-ranging coverage of the world's regions and cultures, and by some of the most influential filmmakers of the genre. The films explore key themes in anthropology and the broader social sciences, including language and culture, family and kinship, sex and gender, social stratification and status, music and the arts, and religion.
  
• Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (Voyages)
  Primary resource documenting the African slave trade. Includes detailed information concerning over 35,000 voyages from 1514 to 1866 with names, statistics, images and other information.
  

The Library's Sub-Saharan African Government Information page includes a custom search engine to locate African government websites.  Consult OskiCat to find titles from Berkeley's large print collection of African government information.

• African Development Indicators (ADI)
  Detailed data on Africa, containing over 1,600 indicators, covering 53 African countries from 1961 to present. Includes data on social, economic, financial, natural resources, infrastructure, governance, partnership, and environmental indicators. To access, click "ADI Database at the World dataBank" under Formats Available.
  
• Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Country Reports and Profiles
  Indexes studies that provide analysis and forecasts of the political, economic, and business environments in more than 180 countries. Annual profiles are updated by quarterly reports.
  
• Europa World
  Provides political and economic information on over 250 countries and territories, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. A useful source of statistics on area and population, health and welfare, agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, industry, finance, external trade, transport, tourism, communications media, and education.
  
• House of Commons Parliamentary Papers
  Provides full-text access to thousands of 19th Century Parliamentary Papers. Includes statistical abstracts for British colonies in Africa and other historical data documenting British colonialism.
  
• AccessUN: The Readex Index to United Nations Documents
  Indexes United Nations (UN) documents and publications including Official Records, UN journals, reports, treaties, conferences, draft resolutions, declarations, meeting records, UN Sales Publications, and UN Treaty Series. Contains the full text of several thousand UN documents.
  
• UC DATA (Data Archive & Technical Assistance)
  The principal archive of computerized social science information for teaching and research. Part of UC Berkeley's Survey Research Center.
  
• World Development Indicators (WDI)
  Provides time series development indicators data (1960-present) for 207 countries. Includes tables for population, labor and employment, education, health, energy, urbanization, national accounts, purchasing power, trade, government finance, monetary, balance of payments, external debt, investment risk, taxes, prices and exchange rates, transport and communication, and information and technology.
  

Find Dissertations by searching Dissertations and Theses (Dissertation Abstracts) Full Text, which includes full-text of most dissertations since 1997. It indexes over 1.5 million dissertations completed in North American (including UC) and European universities from 1861 to the present. Listings after 1980 include abstracts, and some feature 24-page excerpts. 

Consult the comprehensive list of African American Theses and Dissertations, 1907-2002 at UCB. Also see Find Dissertations and Theses for other specialized sources, and dissertations completed at a UC campus can also be found in Library catalogs, which have limit to dissertations/theses search options:

Other Full-text Access: Online full-text of UC dissertations (from 1996) can be found by searching Dissertations & Theses @ University of California and also appear in Library catalog search results. UC Berkeley dissertations in print prior to 1996 may be found by searching the Library catalogs. Dissertations done at other UC campuses prior to 1996 or ouside the UC system must be obtained through Interlibrary Loan or using the "Request" option in Melvyl.

The Media Resources Center (MRC) at Moffitt Library is the UC Berkeley Library's primary collection of materials in electronic non-print (audio and visual) formats. These formats include: videocassettes, DVDs; compact audio discs; audiocassettes; and online (streamed) audio and video. Materials in the MRC may be used on-site in the Center by current UC Berkeley students and staff. Links to selected African cinema and documentary films at the MRC below:

• African Studies Filmography
• African Cinema Filmography
• African Film Bibliography

The Library's Newspaper & Microforms Room holds numerous African newspapers from the 19th century to currently-received titles.  Papers on microfilm are shelved in title order by country.  Currently received print titles are shelved by title.  The Library currently receives the following African newspapers in print:

• Daily Nation (Kenya) 
• Ghanaian Times (Ghana)
• Sunday News (Tanzania)
• Sunday Standard (Kenya)
• Sunday Vision (Sudan)
• Taifa Jumapili (Kenya)

The Stanford Library has one of the largest collections of African newspapers in print and microfilm in the United States.  These titles are available for on-site viewing by UCB afilliated persons.

Center for Research Libraries (CRL) lends African newspapers on microfilm to UCB patrons.  Many titles are list on the Melvyl Catalog where you can request film by sent to Berkeley for use. CRL also hosts AFRINUL a union list of African newspapers held by U.S. research libraries.  This is not a complete list so double-check with each institution's catalog for complete holdings.

African historical and current newspapers are also available electronically through subscription databases and free sites. 

• African Newspapers (World Newspaper Archive)
  Over 60 Sub-Saharan African newspapers published prior to 1923 included in full-text. A UCB subscription resource.
• AllAfrica.com
  Provides current coverage of over 100 African newspapers and some NGO publications in English and French.  Berkeley's subscription provides backfile access to 1996.
• Breaking News
  Reports of latest news. This site is maintained by Stanford University.
• Electronic Newspapers of Africa
  This site providing a list of online newspapers is maintained by Columbia University.

The UC Berkeley Libraries has an extensive microform (microfilm and microfiche) collections, containing valuable information for researchers. The Africana Microform Collections Guide lists a large selection of Berkeley's holdings that include many primary source materials.

The Newspapers and Microforms Department (40 Doe Library) has machines that read, print, and scan images from microfilm and microfiche.

  Microfilm and microfiche owned by the UC Berkeley Libraries can be found through OskiCat; use Advanced Keyword Search to limit your search to "All Microforms." In the News/Micro collection, microfilm rolls and microfiche cards are shelved with their own numbering system; click here for a PDF of the collection's floorplan.

Africa Portal
Includes library of 3,000 materials related to policy issues in Africa, focusing on climate, conflict resolution, energy, food security, health and migration.

Africa South of the Sahara: Selected Internet Resources (Stanford)

African Studies Internet Portal (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

Black Past: Remembered & Reclaimed

Columbia University Libraries - African Studies Internet Resources

Michigan State University - A-Z of African Studies on the Internet

Stanford University African Collection

Northwestern University, Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies              

Cooperative Africana Microform Project (CAMP) at the Center for Research Libraries:
Most titles found in the Center for Research Libraries online catalog are also available via Next Gen Melvyl, and WorldCat for interlibrary loan. Guide to selected CAMP Collections includes finding aids.

Library of Congress African and Middle Eastern Reading Room

Yale University Library African Collection

Internet Library Sub-Saharan Africa
Catalog to books and articles held at major European universities and instititues focused on African Studies.

Africa South of the Sahara: Libraries/Archives
List of African Studies archives worldwide as compiled by Stanford University.

Africa Through a Lens
From the British National Archives, includes thousands of images taken from a broader photographic collection of Foreign and Commonwealth Office images.  Coverage from 1860s to 1960s.

African Activist Archive
Includes records and memories of activism in the United States supporting activities of Africans  against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s.

Genocide Archive Rwanda
Includes videos relating to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi coupled with synchronized transcripts, searchable index terms, and maps. Videos include testimonies of Genocide survivors and perpetrators, Gacaca Justice System court proceedings, and remembrance ceremonies.

Traces of Truth: Documents Related to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Full-text access to records of the South African TRC, a project of the Historical Papers Archive of Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg and the South African History Archives Project.

University of Cape Town Digital Collections
Includes the Jacobson Digital Africana Program collection with historical maps of South Africa, anti-apartheid journals, Anthropological collections, theses, and UCT history.

Winterton Collection of East African Photographs, 1860-1960
Includes over 1,700 photographs showing life in East Africa from 1860-1960. Materials part of the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, Northwestern University.

Africa Past & Present
Podcast hosted by Michigan State University covering history, culture, and politics in Africa and the diaspora.  Includes interviews with leading scholars in the study of Africa.

H-Africa Discussion Network
Listserv and site for scholarly African Studies discussions. Great for book reivews, conference announcements and job postings. You must subscribe to the listserv, however notible threads and other information is obtainable from this site.

African Studies Association (U.S.)

Africana Librarians Council

African Studies: Organizations and Programs

African Union

Association of African Universities

Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)

Southern African Development Community (SADC)

African Studies collections at UC Berkeley are one of the strongest in the United States, totalling nearly 200,000 volumes.  The collections support research throughout the campus, as anchored by the affiliated faculty and programming from the Center for African Studies.  Your support will insure this fine collection continues to grow and support African Studies scholarship on campus and the world over.

The following types of gifts are available:

Cash Gifts for Book Purchases
Cash contributions of any amount are welcomed as they will support the purchase of new books supporting the African Studies.

Book Donations 
Gifts of scholarly materials and the results of research have historically represented a significant element in the development of Berkeley's outstanding research collections. We welcome individual gifts, but due to space and staff limitations, we must be judicious in accepting large contributions. Donations of recently published books are welcomed. New book purchases will be checked to ensure titles aren’t already on order.

Please contact Frank Carothers to discuss your donation of books.

Memorial and Honorific Gifts
Contributions given in memory or in honor of a person are welcomed. For a gift of $1,000 or more, a named memorial book fund can be established. A special book plate will be created and placed in each book.

Named Endowment
An endowed fund is established in perpetuity and has a continuing impact on creating a strong African Studies collection. A named endowment requires a minimum gift of $50,000. The donor may specify an area of interest, e.g., African history, arts, etc. The University invests its endowments carefully to achieve a healthy rate of return that provides for both current needs and long-term growth. A special book plate will be placed in each book.

Contribute Online
Donations can be made online using the Library Fund Online Gift Form and by designating that your gift is for the African Studies Collection at the bottom of the form.

Contribute By Mail
All checks should be made payable to the UC Regents (specify it is for the African Studies Collection) and mailed to:

Jason Schultz
Librarian for Africana Collections
438 Doe Library
University of California 
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000

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