Subject Research: Africana Studies

	Library Materials			Course-Related Materials
	Reference Sources Books: LC Class Number Guide New Acquisitions Senior Thesis / Senior Project			Research Guides Blackboard
	Electronic Materials			Contacts & Connections
	Databases & Indexes Selected Websites Alerts			Departmental Liaison Bibliographic Instruction Department Homepage

		To Top of Page

Library Materials: Reference Sources

Select a reference source to view it's related items.

Encyclopedias

Dictionaries

Biographical

Handbooks

Statistics

Citation Manuals

Encyclopedias

Encyclopedia articles, written by subject authorities, provide information useful for gaining a basic understanding of a topic and getting started with a research project. Typically, a bibliography, or list, of "classic" books and articles for further research follows each article. Students will find also these encyclopedias useful for brushing up on topics related to their central area of investigation. [Note: See the Research Guides for sources that deal with narrower sub-fields within the discipline.] African American encyclopedia. New York : Marshall Cavendish, c2001. CALL NUMBER: Ref E185 .A253 2001 v.1-10 African folklore : an encyclopedia. Philip M. Peek and Kwesi Yankah, editors. New York : Routledge, 2004. CALL NUMBER: Ref GR350 .A33 2004 The African studies companion : a guide to information sources. Editor: Hans M. Zell. Lochcarron : Hans Zell, 2003. This guide to print and electronic resources on Africa includes general online sources and the best online starting points, bibliographies, biographies, African languages, statistical and economic data, maps, films, journals and magazines, news, library collections, publishers, organizations, and online forums. Also available online. CALL NUMBER: RefBib DT19.8 .Z45 2003   Africana: the encyclopedia of the African and African American experience.   Editors, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,  New York : Basic Civitas Books, 1999. CALL NUMBER: Ref DT14 .A37435 1999 Encyclopedia of African-American culture and history. Edited by Colin Palmer. Detroit : Macmillan Library Reference, 2006. CALL NUMBER: Ref E185 .E54 2006 v.1-6 Encyclopedia of African peoples. New York : Facts on File, 2000. Derived from Facts on File's Peoples of Africa set, entries discuss the history of more than 1,000 ethnic groups from all of Africa, including Asante, Kongo, Swahili, Bembe, Luba, Tonga, Copts, Maasai, Venda, Dinka, Nuba, Yoruba, Falasha, Ovambo, Hutu and Tutsi, and Zulu. The resource also includes information on africa's regions and nations, and more than 300 biographies, CALL NUMBER: Ref DT15 .E53 2000 Encyclopedia of Black studies. Editors: Molefi Kete Asante, Ama Mazama. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : SAGE Publications, c2005. Organized alphabetically, the 482 individual entries offer a concise, yet detailed, subject overview. CALL NUMBER: Ref E185 .E554 2005 The Greenwood encyclopedia of African American civil rights : from emancipation to the twenty-first century. Charles D. Lowery and John F. Marszalek, editors ; Thomas Adams Upchurch, associate editor ; foreword by David J. Garrow. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2003. CALL NUMBER: Ref E185.61 .E54 2003  v.1-2 Reference library of Black America. Edited by Jessie Carney Smith, Joseph M. Palmisano. Farmington Hills, MI : Gale Group, Inc., c2000.  CALL NUMBER: Ref E185 .R44 2000 v.1-5

Subject Dictionaries

These specialized subject dictionaries define the terminology in the discipline. See the Research Guides for sources that deal with narrower sub-fields within the discipline. Smitherman, Geneva, 1940-  Black talk : words and phrases from the hood to the amen corner. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, c2000 CALL NUMBER: Ref PE3102 .N4 S65 2000  African historical dictionaries. Edited by Jon Woronoff, Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press 32 volumes organized by country - from Angola to Zimbabwe. Contains entries on the past and present, including historical, political, economic, social, and cultural aspects of each country.

Biographical Resources

Dictionary of African Biography. New York : Reference Publications, c1977-  CALL NUMBER: Ref DT18 .D55 v.1-3

Handbooks

Handbooks collect basic, practical information—formulas, tables of data, classification systems, definitions—for professionals operating within a discipline. Africa Contemporary Record. Recent volume compiled and edited by Colin Legum. New York: African Publishing Corp. Includes essays on current issues, country-by-country review, primary documents, and tables covering social and economic affairs. Latest volume in Reference Room, earlier volumes on 2nd floor. CALL NUMBER: Ref DT1 .L43

Sources of Statistics

The library subscribes to the ASI Microfiche Library. Every document indexed in ASI since 1979 is available in this library. In addition to the ASI Microfiche Library for federal government publications containing statistical data, the library also subscribes to the SRI Microfiche Library, containing most but not every non-federal statistical item indexed in SRI. A third collection, Index to International Statistics, deals with statistical material from international, intergovernmental bodies, completes the package. Online access to the database—and to some of the documents themselves—is available through the Statistical Universe component of LexisNexis Academic Universe. Black Americans: A Statistical Sourcebook. Louise L. Hornor, editor. Palo Alto, CA : Information Publications, 1996. Covering significant topics in American life, this is an extensive collection of tables on a wide variety of topics. CALL NUMBER Ref E185.5 .B5238 (1996, 1998, 2000) Mitchell, Brian R. International historical statistics : Africa, Asia & Oceania, 1750-2000./ B.R. Mitchell. New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Updated to 2002 wherever possible, it provides key economic and social indicators for the last 250 years. CALL NUMBER Ref HA4675 .M552 2003

Citation Guides and Style Manuals

Style manuals and citations guides illustrate how to cite book, journal, and other research sources, including materials found in online databases and on the Web according to the conventional format of a particular discipline. Subject specific citation guides are listed below, and a complete listing appears at Reference Sites: Citation Guides and Style Manuals. Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources. [ Online ] Andrew Harnack and Eugene Kleppinger. Available: http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/

		To Top of Page

Library Materials: Books: LC Class Number Guide

Books in Schaffer Library are arranged by Library of Congress Class number. Class numbers are searchable in the Web Catalog and browsable in the Stacks and Reference Collection. Note: In addition to the class number areas listed below, books on Africana Studies may be found in many other areas of the library.  To find them, try a combined keyword search in the online catalog such as African America? and [your topic]. Browse the Shelves by LC Class Number.

		To Top of Page

Library Materials: New Acquisitions

The New Acquisitions List—residing on the Library Catalogs page—is generated on the 10th of each month and includes items added to the library's collections for the previous calendar month.

		To Top of Page

Microfiche copies of Senior honors theses are maintained in the Library. For details on the Library's theses holdings, formats, access, photocopying restrictions, and searching for a thesis in the online catalog, see the Thesis Search page.

		To Top of Page

Research Guides supplement the broader Research by Subject pages by focusing on the print and electronic resources that are most useful for a course-specific research assignment. For faculty, the Research Guides provide structured access to the Library and Internet resources relevant to their own work or in advising students on their research projects. For students working independently, it serves as a reminder of services and materials offered within the library while at the same time providing a gateway for information available from remote sites.

Sophomore Research Seminar:

African-American Protest Movements

		To Top of Page

Faculty using Blackboard are encouraged to incorporate links to Library resources—and specifically the Research by Subject pages and the appropriate course-related Research Guides—into the Blackboard course pages. Your Departmental Liaison or Bibliographic Instruction Contacts can assist you.

		To Top of Page

Schaffer Library provides to range of general and subject-specific electronic databases—some offering full-text access to articles or library holdings information.

		To Top of Page

African Online Digital Library

http://africandl.org MATRIX, working in cooperation with the African Studies Center at MSU and in partnership with premiere research institutions in Africa is pioneering the African Online Digital Library. The goal of this fully accessible online digital repository is to provide digital access to African scholarly materials for users in both the United States and all the Northern Hemisphere and in Africa.

African Studies Internet Resources

www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/africa Columbia University's collection of African Studies Internet Resources is an on-going compilation of electronic bibliographic resources and research materials on Africa available on the global Internet, created under the purview of the African Studies Department of Columbia University Libraries. Electronic resources from Africa are organized by region and country.

Africa - South of the Sahara

www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/guide.html Published by Karen Fung, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A comprehensive web site for African studies research.

An A-Z of African Studies on the Internet

www.lib.msu.edu/limb/a-z/az.html An alphabetical list of selected Internet resources on Africa. Includes a link to the African e-Journals Project.

H-Africa

www2.h-net.msu.edu/~africa Links to archives of debates and group forums on the H-Africa listserv, conference reports, thematic essays, tables of contents from African studies journals, and other information.

		To Top of Page

Tools for tracking recently published articles.

All Africa Global Media

http://allafrica.com Leading provider of African news and information worldwide, through news feeds to institutional and agency clients.  Posting more than 700 new stories daily.

BlackPressUsa

www.blackpressusa.com The joint web presence of America’s Black community newspapers and the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service, featuring news exclusively from African-American journalists and Black community publications.

Black Word Today

http://www.tbwt.org/ Covering news about African American and Black communities around the world. Free e-mail subscription available for daily news.

The New York Times: African-American (Black) Studies

http://college.nytimes.com/guests/directory/Ethnic_&_Cultural_Studies/African-American_(Black)_Studies/ The New York Times. (Accessed 28 April 2004) Provides full text access to articles from The New York Times "Ethnic & Cultural Studies" section.

The New York Times: African Studies

http://college.nytimes.com/guests/directory/Area_Studies/African_Studies The New York Times. (Accessed 28 April 2004) Provides full text access to articles from The New York Times "Area Studies" section.

		To Top of Page

Gail Golderman
For information on resources, services, collections, and book ordering for your department.

		To Top of Page

Bibliographic Instruction Contact
For information on scheduling course-related instruction session or faculty training session.