• Getting Started
• Finding Books
• Finding Periodical Articles
• Web Sites
• Librarian

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Getting Started: Selected Reference Works

Begin your research with reference works to find background information, locate statistics and facts, and build a bibliography.

General Reference Works

Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience
DT14 .A37435 2005
This five volume set expands and updates 1999 edition. Entries cover political, social, and historical topics relating to Africa, African diaspora, and African Americans. Includes maps, tables, charts, illustrations, and some articles include bibliographical references.

Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara
Ref DT 351 .E53 1997
A four volume encyclopedia covering the peoples of Africa, their societies and their histories; bibliographies include references to American, European and African scholarship.

Government, Politics & Economics

Africa South of the Sahara 2001
Ref DT351 .A37 2001

The Middle East and North Africa
Ref DS 49 .M5 2001
Part of the Regional Surveys of the World series, these works provide regional and national surveys of political and economic issues; an excellent source of background information about African regions and countries.

History

African Historical Dictionaries
A valuable reference series for the history of specific African nations; the dictionaries contain chronologies, brief topical entries, and bibliographies; to locate a historical dictionary for a particular country, perform a title search in BRIDGE for "Historical Dictionary of (country name)."

The Cambridge History of Africa
Ref DT20 .C28
A multi-volume survey covering African history from earliest times to 1975.

Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa: Archaeology, History, Languages, Cultures, Environments
Ref DT2 .E53 1997
A one volume survey of African culture through time.

UNESCO General History of Africa
DT20 .G45
An 8 volume set that presents African history from prehistory to 1980 from the perspective of African scholars; note that this set is in the general stacks, not the reference collection.

Literature

African Writers
Ref PL8010 .A453 1996
Profiles of over 65 African authors of the late 19th and 20th centuries; bibliographies cover not only the authors' works, but also critical studies of the works.

The Companion to African Literature
Ref PR9340 .C65 2000
Focuses on African Literature in English or in English translation; entries address individual authors, African language literatures, and themes in African literature; an excellent source to identify works of a particular genre or from a particular country.

Dictionary of Literary Biography: Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African Writers
Ref PR9025 .A52
Biographies, elementary criticism, and bibliographies of prominent Caribbean and African authors.

Music

International Dictionary of Black Composers

Ref ML105 .I5 1999
Contains critical essays about Black composers worldwide and their works, as well as biographies, discographies, lists of works, and bibliographies.

People

An African Biographical Dictionary
Ref PT18 .B76 1994
Biographical sketches for nearly 550 prominent sub-Saharan Africans from all historical periods; sketches indexed by nation and by field of significance.

Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life
Ref GN333 .W67 1998 v. 1
Provides information on the customs and living conditions of the nearly one hundred cultural groups of Africa.

Religion

Encyclopedia of African and African American Religion
Ref BL2462.5 .E53 2001
Covers religious movements and churches of Africa, North America, South America, and the Caribbean.

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Finding Books

Two kinds of books, monographs and essay collections, compose the majority of Gould Library's collection. Monographs provide extended analyses of a topic by a single author. Essay collections bring together articles, often by different authors, on a given topic.

In Bridge, the shared library catalog for the libraries of Carleton and St. Olaf Libraries:

• Begin with a keyword search.

Enter words that describe your topic (names, places, events, etc.).

When you find a book on your topic, examine its subject headings for relevance to your topic.

Click on a hyperlinked subject heading to perform subject heading search and retrieve related books.

• Perform a subject heading search in Bridge only if you know a valid Library of Congress subject heading.

Search "Africa" as a subject heading to browse a list of relevant subject headings, such as:

Africa -- Medicine -- History -- 20th century
Africa -- Peasantry
Africa -- Women -- Employment

*Note that many Library of Congress subject headings relevant to African Studies do not begin with "Africa":

African drama (French) -- History and Criticism
Kenya -- Politics and government
Women -- Africa, East -- Economic conditions

• Browsing the stacks can help you evaluate the library's collection in a given field of study. Browsing for materials in interdisciplinary fields, however, is difficult, as relevant materials may be found in almost every LC call number. Below are some relevant call number ranges:

DT1-3415 African history
PT8000-8844 African languages and literature
PQ3800-3900's African literature in French
PR9000's African literature in English

Search WorldCat, an online catalog for libraries throughout the world, to take your search beyond Northfield.

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Finding Periodical Articles

Periodicals often provide excellent sources of information. Articles in scholarly periodicals (academic journals) present current research in a field, while articles in popular periodicals (magazines and newspapers) both shape and reflect public opinion.

Periodical Databases & Indexes

Africana Periodical Literature Database (1928-present)

An English language database that indexes articles from journals and periodicals that specialize in African Studies or consistently cover the African continent.

Africa Bibliography (1984-present)
Ref DT3 .A38
Indexes articles, books, and book chapters in African studies.

African Journals Online
Searchable tables of contents to select recent African journals in science & technology, social sciences, and the humanities; articles may be ordered through Gould Library's Interlibrary Loan department.

African Women's Bibliographic Database (1986-present)
Indexes books, essays in books, periodical articles, theses and dissertations, government documents, videotapes, and conference papers in English dealing with African women.

Anthropological Literature (late 19th cen.-present)
Provides citations for scholarly articles dealing with archaeology, ethnohistory, folklore, and other anthropological subjects.

Contemporary Women's Issues (1992-present)
Provides access to information about women in over 150 countries; indexes books, journals, newsletters, research reports from non-profit groups, government andinternational agencies; many articles are full text.

Historical Abstracts (1954-present)
Provides citations for scholarly articles covering world history from 1450 to the present.

International Index to Black Periodicals (1910-present)
An interdisciplinary index to popular and scholarly periodicals in Black Studies from 1910 to the present; some articles available full text.

International African Bibliography(1974-present)
Ref DT3 .I58
Indexes articles, books, book chapters, and essays in African studies; the most complete Africana index.

MLA International Bibliography (1963-present)
Provides citations to articles dealing with literature, folklore, language, and linguistics.

PAIS International (1972-present)
Provides citations to articles dealing with political and social issues.

Sociological Abstracts (1963-present)
Provides citations to articles dealing with social issues.

Web of Science
Search either the Social Science Citation Index (1969-present) or the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present) to locate journal articles that cite specific works.

**Once you have located article citations in a database, index, or bibliography, perform a title search in BRIDGE using the exact title of the periodical. If Carleton and St. Olaf do not hold the journal, you may request the article through Interlibrary Loan.

Scholarly Journals to Browse

Articles relevant to African American Studies appear not only in these journals, but also in discipline-specific journals (e.g. American Historical Review, Publications of the Modern Language Association). Be sure to consult other subject pages for a more complete listing of relevant journals in disciplines related to your research.

Africa Today
Online

Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review
Online

Journal of African History
In Print and Online

Journal of Black Studies
Online

Journal of Modern African Studies
In Print and Online

Journal of Southern African Studies
In Print and Online

The International Journal of African Historical Studies
In Print and Online

Research in African Literatures
In Print and Online

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Web Sites

The Web sites recommended below complement other research resources.

H-Africa
The homepage for an academic listserv on Africa and African studies; click on the "Discussion Threads" link to browse recent 'conversations' among Africanists; a great resource to learn about recent trends in African studies scholarship.

African Studies Association
The professional organization for scholars of African history and culture; an excellent place to assess the state of the field.

African News (AllAfrica.com)
Posts African news stories from over 80 African media organizations

African Postcolonial Literature in English
Links to essays, bibliographies, biographies, and visual images related to postcolonial studies in Africa. Browse site by country, author, or subject. Some sections incomplete.

Africa South of the Sahara
Links to Internet resources on Sub-Saharan Africa; maintained by Stanford University; indexed by country and topic and searchable by keyword.

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
The Schomburg Center, a national research library affiliated with New York Public Library, provides digital libraries, online exhibitions, and links to other Internet resources on Africa and the African Diaspora.