Africa Studies

Message from CRL President Bernard Reilly

We devote this issue of Focus to resources for the study of African history, culture, politics, economics, and societies. In large measure the issue is a tribute to the work of the participants and supporters of the Cooperative Africana Microform Project (CAMP), which marked its fortieth anniversary last April. CAMP is an international collecting and preservation enterprise based at the Center for Research Libraries.

Recent Developments in African Scholarly e-Resources

Michigan State University Africana bibliographer Peter Limb surveys the ever-expanding landscape of Africa-related e-resources, including direct links to more than a dozen scholarly portals.

Political Communications Web Archive - Preserving Nigerian Election Sites

The findings of a Mellon Foundation-funded investigation on Web archiving studied the “behaviors” of sites mounted and maintained by political parties and groups during the 2003 Nigerian presidential and gubernatorial elections.

Disseminating African Scholarship: A Report on the DATAD Workshop

"Intellectual Property, Governance, Dissemination, and Funding Strategies" were the focus of a recent workshop sponsored by the Association of African Universities and the Center for Research Libraries. The article includes links to presentation materials, presenter profiles, and working papers.

New Africana Acquisitions

Africana materials acquired by the Center since September 2003, including dissertations, books, archival materials, and newspapers.

Program and Services Update

The Center recently welcomed a new member, Loyola Marymount University, and two Global Resources projects --the Latin Americanist Research Resources Project and German Resources Project-- that are now based at the Center.

Cooperative Africana Microform Project: Forty Years of Collaboration and Scholarship

In May 2003, with little fanfare or demonstration, the Cooperative Africana Microform Project (CAMP) marked its fortieth anniversary. An international cooperative collection development effort, CAMP has established itself as a critical resource for Africana librarianship and African studies and a model for subsequent collaborative programs.

Inside Apartheid: The Benjamin Pogrund Collection of Southern Africa Materials

Historical evidence is a frequent casualty of turbulent times. Documents that might enable historians to chronicle the events and actors in periods of war, insurgency, and political upheaval are too often lost or destroyed through oversight or deliberate action. During the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, journalist Benjamin Pogrund worked tirelessly and at great personal risk with the Cooperative Africana Microform Project (CAMP) at the Center for Research Libraries to ensure the survival of thousands of documents of the period.

The Carter-Karis and Karis-Gerhart Collections of South African Political Materials, 1882-1990

A Tale of Two Collections

The Carter-Karis and Karis-Gerhart Collections exemplify the kinds of critical resources that have been developed under the Cooperative Africana Microform Project and made widely available to scholars, educators, and advanced researchers through the Center for Research Libraries.

A detail from Edward Hertslet's 1895 map, "Anglo-French Frontier on Niger & to East of that River." Courtesy of the Library of Congress.