This page gives links to freely available internet sites relevant to African studies.
Bibliographies, databases and guides
Portals for African studies
- A Guide to Africa on the Internet
Nordic Africa Institute, Sweden - African Studies Internet Resources
Columbia University, USA - Africa South of the Sahara: Selected Internet Resources
Stanford University, USA - Afrique francophone
City University of New York, USA - A-Z of African Studies on the Internet
Michigan State University, USA
African languages
- Ethnologue, Languages of the World
Lists world languages and language hierarchies, including information about where and by whom they are spoken.
African studies and library networks
- Standing Conference on Library Materials on Africa (SCOLMA)
UK organisation; holds seminars and conferences, runs a co-operative acquisitions scheme and publishes information on library holdings on Africa. - African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK)
- Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa
CODESRIA, based in Dakar, Senegal, is a pan-African research organisation. Some of its publications are available on its website. - Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS)
- African Studies Association of the US (ASA)
- H-Net
Scholarly network with several African strands including H-Africa for African history and HAfResearch for primary sources on Africa.
Archives for African studies
Sites useful for locating manuscripts and archives, primarily in the UK:
- National Register of Archives
Provided by the UK National Archives: Historical Manuscripts Commission, the NRA consists of indexes to the records of persons, families and corporate bodies mainly held in Britain. It is an essential tool for locating manuscripts and archives in the UK. - A2A (Access to Archives)
- Online catalogue for archives held locally in England and Wales; includes records for many of the India Office records held by the British Library.
- Archives Hub
Descriptions of archives in over 150 UK universities and colleges. - AIM 25
Descriptions of archives held by the University of London and other universities and organisations in London and the surrounding area. - Mundus Gateway
Guide to more than four hundred collections of overseas missionary materials held in the United Kingdom.
For Africa-related archives in the UK, see especially the holdings of the following institutions:
- National Archives
The National Archives is the main repository for government records in the UK, and holds i.a. the papers of the British government Foreign Office, Colonial Office and War Office. - School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Important for both published and unpublished material, and especially strong in missionary records. Access to the SOAS Library Catalogue. The archives and manuscripts are described here. There are online catalogues for Swahili manuscripts and Hausa literature. - Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House, Oxford University
Part of the main research library in Oxford. Rhodes House has strong African collections, especially of the papers of colonial officials. Many of these are catalogued on Archives Hub. - Cambridge University Library
Holds the collections (mainly printed books, archives and photographs) of the library of the Royal Commonwealth Society. The Centre of African Studies, Cambridge University, also has its own specialist library. - Durham University Library holds the Sudan Archive.
- British Commonwealth and Empire Museum
The Museum’s extensive archives include material relating to the British empire in Africa.
Bibliographies, databases and guides for African studies
- Studying Africa: a guide to the sources (ed. Kristina Rylander)
Published as a pdf by the Nordic Africa Institute, Sweden. - African Studies Abstracts
Publishes abstracts of articles in a wide range of recent African studies journals. University of Leiden, Netherlands - Africabib
Site giving bibliographic databases of Africana periodical literature (covering nearly 500 journals, mainly in humanities and social sciences) and African women’s writing. - African e-Journals Project
Based at Michigan State University, USA, this site provides a directory of journals about Africa as well as a (limited) full-text archive. - African journals online
Provides free searching and abstracts for journals published in Africa. Full text is available for a fee. - Connecting Africa
Provides access to African research information and materials produced in the Netherlands and elsewhere. - H-Africa
Resources provided include tables of contents for Africa-related articles from non-Africanist journals.
For further bibliographic and reference help see the British Library's African collections pages.
Current affairs sites for African studies
- AllAfrica.com
Commercial site with free recent content, publishing stories from African news organisations. - IRIN News
News reports from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Official publications from Africa
- Governments on the www
This organisation was created by a number of governments of Francophone African countries. The website publishes a variety of statistics. - African International Courts and Tribunals
See also the Guide to the current African official publications in the British Library and the portals listed above.
Visual material from Africa
- British Library Images Online
- Africa Through a Lens
Large collection of Colonial Office photographs held by the UK National Archives, online on Flickr. - African Media Program
Large database of catalogue entries for moving pictures, from Michigan State University, USA. - Basel Mission Picture Archive
Digitised photographs 1850–1950, from the archives of the Basel Mission, Switzerland, which had a presence in several African countries. - British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, Bristol
Large collection of still and moving images - Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire
Film collections of the British Film Institute, Imperial War Museum and British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. - Co-operative Digital Resources Initiative
Various digitised library collections for the study of religion, including 350 missionary postcards, mainly of Africa, held by Yale University, USA. - Internet Mission Photography Archive
Digitised photographs provided by the University of Southern California, USA, from a range of Catholic and Protestant churches. A number of African countries are included. - Pitt-Rivers Museum, University of Oxford
Online database of catalogue entries for photograph collections, with selected photographs online. - Posters from the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies
- RCS Photograph Project
700 digitised images, a selection of the collections of the library of the Royal Commonwealth Society. - Royal Geographical Society
Image library of the UK Royal Geographical Society. - Winterton Collection of East African Photographs
Online photographs from the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, Northwestern University, USA.
