African Studies Portal - UW-Madison Libraries : Digital and Digitized Works

This online collection is maintained by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. It contains digitized images and sounds of Africa contributed over the years to the African Studies Program of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. These digital files are stored in an accessible database and are provided for personal use or educational presentations. The project was developed through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The completion date was March 1, 2000, at which time the site contained in its searchable database the digital representations of more than 3000 slides, 500 photographs, and 50 hours of sound from forty-five different countries. As we continue to expand, amend, and evaluate the site, suggestions and criticisms are welcomed by digitalcontent@library.wisc.edu.

This site supplies information on the history, economy, and politics of countries and territories. Each profile includes an overview, map, facts, and current leaders. A media overview provides information on the press, television, radio, news agencies, and number of Internet users. Links provided on the side of the profile connect to the latest news and key stories, BBC links, background articles, related Internet sites and video and audio clips from the BBC archives. Additional features include timelines, recent news links, background articles, Internet sites, and BBC archive video and audio clips. Information on key international organizations is also included. (Updates ongoing)

The Liberation Journals Index is an analytic, searchable, online index covering the interwar Pan-African periodicals La Revue du Monde Noir, Légitime Défense, L’Étudiant Noir, the wartime Tropiques, and the postwar Présence Africaine, as well as the Québécois journal Liberté. This index was originally conceived both as a public research tool and as a practical component of Meadow Dibble-Dieng’s dissertation, a comparative study that considers the various ways in which literary periodicals have served in liberation movements throughout the Francophone world. (2006, Dates vary)

Full text searchable newspaper covergage of approximately 270 U.S newspapers documenting the African American experience in Americafrom the early 19th century to the end of the 20th century.

A database of 40 searchable African newspapers covering the period from 1800 to 1922. Coverage is largely of English-language papers but a few in African languages are also included.

A collection of over 300 full-text major African literary titles of fiction, poetry, drama and non-fictional prose. For over 40 years, Heinemann's African Writers Series published the key texts of modern African literature. It has a unique importance in the history of postcolonial writing. It includes works by Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, Steve Biko, Buchi Emecheta, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Doris Lessing, Nelson Mandela, Dambudzo Marechera, Christopher Okigbo, Okot p'Bitek and Tayeb Salih and other well-known and not-so-well-known authors. Each work is fully seachable for textual analysis. The collection also provides a full gallery of book covers. A wide geographic range is also represented: most of the works come from English-speaking countries in Western, Southern, and Eastern Africa, but there are also a number of volumes translated from French (from Cameroon and Cote d'Ivoire) or Portuguese (from Mozambique).

Black Studies in Video, the latest addition to Alexander Street Press’s award-winning black studies portfolio, brings together seminal documentaries, powerful interviews, and previously unavailable archival footage surveying the black experience. At completion, the collection will contain 500 hours of film covering African American history, politics, art and culture, family structure, gender relationships, and social and economic issues. In partnership with California Newsreel, the database provides unique access to their African American Classics collection, and includes films covering history, politics, art and culture, family structure, social and economic pressures, and gender relations. Additionally, and exclusively from Alexander Street, Black Studies in Video will feature the SNCC Legacy Video Collection, a series of over fifty hours of formal addresses, panel discussions, and programs that took place at the fiftieth anniversary conference and reunion commemorating the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The collection includes documentaries on leading artists, writers, musicians, playwrights, and performers, such as Toni Morrison, Langston Hughes, Huey P. Newton, Frantz Fanon, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Eldridge Cleaver, August Wilson, Bobby Seale, Ethel Waters, Amiri Baraka, and Robert F. Williams. The database will also draw from the Hatch-Billops Collection, a critically acclaimed archive of primary and secondary resource materials focused on black American art, drama, and literature. Additional content planned for inclusion are the SNCC archives, the NAACP archives, and archives from select Historically Black Colleges and Universities. (Updates unknown)

The Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966 is Official British government correspondence concerning Africa from the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office. It was issued by the British Government. It is a fundamental building block for political, social and economic research about Africa. It is part of the series that originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These 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. 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 Confidential Print: Africa cover the whole of the modern period of European colonization of the continent. They are essential sources for the study of African history and the understanding of Africa today. The resource includes the following file classes from the UK National Archives, Kew, in their entirety: CO 879/1-190 (Africa, 1848-1961) CO 886/1-11 (Dominions, 1907-1925) DO 116/1-8 (Dominions (South African), 1913-1944) FO 341/1-3 (Africa 1884-1900) FO 401/1-48 (Abyssinia, 1846-1956) FO 403/1-482 (Africa, 1834-1957) FO 413/1-99 (Morocco and North-West Africa, 1839-1957) FO 458/1-157 (West Africa, 1882-1950) FO 468/1-4 (British Commonwealth, 1945-1949) FO 485/1-3 (Liberia, 1947-1949) FO 540/1-6 (Libya, 1951-1956) The resource also includes selected files from: CO 885/1-140 (War and Colonial Department and Colonial Office Confidential Print, 1839-1966) DO 114/1-120 (Dominions Office Confidential Print, 1924-1951) DO 201/1-53 (Commonwealth Relations Office Confidential Print, 1946-1966) WO 287/1-287 (War Office Confidential Print, 1904-1949) All these documents are full-text searchable. In addition, this resource showcases full-colour maps.

This Corpus gives access, as completely as possible, to the whole of Francophone written and oral literature from the Indian Ocean, from the origins (18th century) to Independence (1960, or death of authors). It includes works by more than 200 authors. The oral literature of the Indian Ocean was collected by intellectuals or by religious communities. It is to be found in specialized volumes or dispersed in didactic works (dictionaries, grammars, anthologies) from which this literary heritage was extracted, which is both popular and scholarly, often very ancient. The basic text chosen for the electronic edition corresponds to the original text as it has submitted to the publisher. The original text is edited in its identical original form. The French version of oral literary works is accompanied by a version in the original language, when that version exists. (Not updated, complete)

Empire Online spans five centuries, charting the rise and fall of empires around the world. It provides exploration of colonial history, politics, culture, and society. Key features include: tens of thousands of pages of unique primary source material including maps, manuscripts, pamphlets, paintings, drawings, and rare books; interactive chronology and data maps charting the histories and the spread of empires across the globe; an extensive image gallery showcasing the people, places and events important to the history of empire studies. It is organized around five thematically-based sections: Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing & the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion & Empire; and Race, Class, Colonialism, Imperialism. Types of materials include: exploration journals and logs; letter books and correspondence; periodicals; diaries; official government papers; missionary papers; travel writing; slave papers; memoirs; fiction; children's adventure stories; traditional folk tales; exhibition catalogs and guides; maps; marketing posters; photographs and illustrations. It offers a global perspective on empire from French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German points of view, as well as that of indigenous peoples from Africa, India, and North America. Material in Empire Online has been sourced from a range of recognized institutions, with a particularly strong representation of documents and images from the British Library.

A comprehensive online resource for the visual study of human culture and behavior and the largest, most affordable streaming video collection of its kind, Ethnographic Video Online contains more than 500 hours of classic and contemporary documentaries produced by leading video producers in the discipline; previously unpublished footage from working anthropologists and ethnographers in the field; and select feature films. (Updates unknown)

Italian colonial aspirations and policies mimicked those of other European countries during the modern period. Italian colonial policy during the period 1930-1939 was shaped more by Fascism. Fascist tenets related to governance and social policy were used in the administration and treatment of the African population in Libya, Eritrea, Somalia, and Italian East Africa. This collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities. U.S. Consulates were listening posts reporting on the activities of the Italian colonial governments and later the mandate authorities, and the activities of the native peoples. Highlights include the Italo-Ethiopian War and the activities of American expatriates in the conflict and conflicts between Italian, British and French colonial governments in Northeast Africa. Source Library: U.S. National Archives.

Interdisciplinary resource of over 1,000 issue-based documentaries and independent films from the U.S. and other countries. Topics include: race and gender studies, human rights, globalization and global studies, multiculturalism, international relations, criminal justice, the environment, bioethics, health, political science, and current events, psychology, arts, literature, and more. Clips, playlists, etc., can be integrated into web pages and learning management systems either as links or embeds. (Complete: not updated)

Electronic version of the FBIS (Foreign Broadcast Information Service) Daily Reports. In February 1941, the Roosevelt administration authorized the creation of the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service (FBMS). The mandate of the FBMS was to record, translate, transcribe and analyze foreign shortwave propaganda radio programs. In 1947 FBMS was renamed the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). Its original mission was centered on radio and press agency monitoring and translation. But in 1967, FBIS' mission was expanded to include foreign mass media whether it was conveyed by radio, television, or print. The Readex FBIS electronic database consists of scanned copies of the paper issues of the various FBIS Daily Reports. Note also that the manner in which geographic regions have been grouped together or separated in FBIS has varied over time, particularly in the cases of Africa and South Asia. The years covered by the Readex FBIS database vary by geographical region, with coverage consisting of: A) Middle East and [North] Africa 1974-1987; B) Near East and South Asia 1987-1996; C) South Asia 1980-1987; D) Sub-Saharan Africa 1974-1980 E) Africa 1987-1996; F) China 1974-1996; G) Asia and the Pacific 1974-1987; H) East Asia 1987-1996; I)Latin America 1974-1996; J) Eastern Europe 1974-1996; K) Soviet Union/Central Asia 1974-1996; L) Western Europe 1974-1996.

The Joint Publications Research Service was a U.S. government organization established in 1957 to supply government agencies with translations of unclassified foreign documents consisting of the following works not available in English: periodical and newspaper articles, scholarly journals, trade and commercial statistics reports, military documents and special reports, and other selective source material. It initially emphasized scientific and technical topics, but over time, that scope expanded to cover environmental concerns, world health issues, nuclear proliferation, and more. While JPRS translated articles from nearly every country in the world, it concentrated on communist and developing countries. The service was closely related to Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), and was absorbed by FBIS in the late 1990s. JPRS’s scope was broader than FBIS, which emphasized political news more. FBIS was replaced by World News Connection (WNC).

Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) offers access to more than 17,000 news, legal and business sources, including print and online journals; television and radio broadcasts; newswires and blogs; local, regional, national and international newspapers with deep archives; extensive legal sources for federal and state cases and statutes, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 1790; and business information on more than 80 million U.S. and international companies and more than 75 million executives. (Updated daily)

This online collection is maintained by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. It contains digitized images and sounds of Africa contributed over the years to the African Studies Program of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. These digital files are stored in an accessible database and are provided for personal use or educational presentations. The project was developed through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The completion date was March 1, 2000, at which time the site contained in its searchable database the digital representations of more than 3000 slides, 500 photographs, and 50 hours of sound from forty-five different countries. As we continue to expand, amend, and evaluate the site, suggestions and criticisms are welcomed by digitalcontent@library.wisc.edu.

Although African studies is a relatively new discipline, the field has generated a large body of publications in the past 45 to 50 years. Most of these of course were published in garden-variety ways, in sufficient copies to remain reasonably available in today’s much improved document-delivery environment. Nonetheless, there have been exceptions–materials that were published in limited, sometimes very limited, quantities, but which have produced a demand beyond the capacity of their initial print run to satisfy.

Digitizing these then–and others like them–will significantly enhance their accessibility. More to the point, it will make it possible for researchers in Africa to secure access to them and thereby to circumvent–if only (so far) in a modest way–the longstanding and apparently indefinitely continuing “book famine.” In a way, the present project could be seen as providing a template for further and future projects here and elsewhere. While no amount of digitizing to hope to overcome this shortage, strategically based projects throughout the western world can have a discernible impact on its effects.

Dr. Harold Scheub is the Evjue-Bascom Professor of Humanities in the Department of African Languages and Literature and one of the world’s leading scholars in African oral traditions and folklore. To record oral traditions he has walked more than 6000 miles through South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho. Dr. Scheub has published more than two dozen books and more than 70 articles.

The Harold E. Scheub Collection includes the following digital resources:
Images
Sounds
South African Voices

Since 1974, Professor Henry Drewal has been documenting Afro-Brazilian visual and performance arts and artists, primarily in Salvador, Bahia but also elsewhere, including Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Fortaleza, Maranhao, and other sites primarily in northeastern Brazil. These images provide a glimpse into the rich presence, creativity, beliefs and practices of these artists and their communities. The collection includes Afro-Brazilian religious arts collected in various museums and cultural institutions, as well as those in use by Afro-Brazilians, some in the context of religious practices such as candomble, others from festivals such as carnaval. The arts depicted include sculpture, musical instruments, jewelry and decorative arts, as well as textiles/costumes, and paintings. This collection is vast in its scope. One section includes art by Afro-Brazilian artists working in the late 1980s, for example, while another includes performance arts of Afro-Brazilian carnaval groups known as Blocos Afros during the festival seasons of 1993, and 1997-8.

Commemorative Fabrics from Africa is a collection of machine-made commemorative textiles from various African countries. This collection provides researchers access to digitized fabrics that are printed with images and text documenting events and individuals of historical, political, religious, economic, educational, and sociological significance to African societies. Throughout the continent, fabric serves multiple functions in people’s daily lives. It is used for clothing, shelter, storage, and packing material. The type of African fabric found in this collection also serves as a communication device. When used as a textual and visual document, the fabric becomes a vehicle to commemorate an event or to celebrate a person’s life or achievement. One does not need to know how to read in order to understand the messages found in these textiles. In societies where a large portion of the population cannot read, the visual elements enable everyone to share in the reception and transmission of the message that is being conveyed. In this way, the fabric also serves to preserve historical narratives that are important to the community. The pieces in this collection were graciously donated by UW faculty, staff, students, alumni, and other individuals outside the UW.