LibGuides: African Studies Resources: Websites and Electronic Databases

Databases

Accessible Archives This link opens in a new window The collection houses African American Newspapers. We have access to the following: The Christian Recorder Weekly Advocate/The Colored American Frederick Douglass’ Paper Freedom’s Journal The National Era The North Star Provincial Freeman
AnthroSource This link opens in a new window Use for anthropological literature on Africa. The Advanced Search option gives you more choices and may be more efficient than the Basic Search.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States This link opens in a new window Spanning 2,000 primary source documents related to African American history, from the movement to abolish slavery to the contemporary era, this collection is openly available to anyone interested in U.S. Black history, and the ways the past is reflected in current events.
Black Life in America This link opens in a new window
The experience and impact of African Americans, as recorded by the news media. (Extended Trial)
CountryWatch This link opens in a new window Data and information on countries. Not a source of articles.
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
At the bottom of the opening page there is a list of topics, one of which is Civil Rights and Social Justice. The link there allows you to explore HeinOnline's resources in this topic. The libguide provided there also links outward to other resources.
JSTOR (note: clear browser cache/cookies before using) This link opens in a new window
This is an archival database. It usually runs from the first volume of a scholarly peer-reviewed journal up to a “moving wall” ranging from 3 to 5 years of the present date. In Advance Search you can limit your search to journals on African American and African topics.
Hofstra subscribes to JSTOR Arts & Sciences Collections I through VII, as well as the Life Sciences Collection and JSTOR 19th Century British Pamphlets
PAIS Index This link opens in a new window Includes PAIS International & PAIS Archive. PAIS International includes journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference papers, web content, and more from over 120 countries throughout the world. In English and other languages. PAIS Archive includes monographs, periodical articles, notes and announcements, and analytics. Content relates to public and social policies, such as Prohibition, suffrage, pacifism, civil rights, McCarthyism, Vietnam War, and Watergate.
Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window Provides abstracts and indexes of international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Includes journal articles, citations to book reviews, abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new window Sociological Abstracts, PAIS, and Worldwide Political Science Abstracts databases abstract and index both scholarly and non-scholarly international literature. All contain some literature on African topics. Use Journal Finder link within the database to determine if Hofstra University holds a copy of an article.

Websites

Cooperative Africana Materials Project (CAMP) A cooperative project between the Center for Research Libraries and research libraries throughout the world to preserve publications and archives of Sub-Saharan African nations. Contact information is available on the website.

Black Issues in Philosophy Run by the American Philosophy Association. Up-to-date discussions of academic philosophy issues, usually focused on the United States.

Slave Voyages Sponsored by Emory University, the database contains information culled from primary sources on the African slave trade. One can use it to extract data and information about specific voyages and to create statistical reports. It also contains a repository of images and essays on the topic. Please read the Legal page before citing, using and distributing.

AALBC.com (African American Literature Bookclub) Excellent review site for a diverse range of books on African American experience and culture.

Black Abolitionist Archive A digital collection of over 800 speeches and writings, including newspaper articles, by African American abolitionists. Maintained by the University of Detroit Mercy Libraries.

Frederick Douglass Project Project to digitize the archival collection on Frederick Douglass at the University of Rochester.

QBR: The Black Book Review Reviews a wide range of books, many popular and including fiction, on African American topics.

Open Access Sources

Open-Access resources may be accessed directly from the Web. They do not always contain the full-text of articles and sometimes are a combination of open-access and for-fee materials.

Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies Open access journal with reproductions of the older print issues (1970s) also made available.

African Minds A collection of open access books produced by African scholars in a number of disciplines. Search under Publications link for the books.

AfricArXiv Archive of preprints of scientists from Africa. Outputs in all scientific fields.

HathiTrust has a wealth of older materials that might be use in courses in the history of African Studies, European travelers to Africa, colonialism, the "othering" of Africans, and 19th and early 20th century ethnographic accounts of Africa. It also contains sources on African America, and Black diaspora, issues. I urge faculty and students to use it Use the setting for full-view or full-text.

Leiden University Repository: African Studies Centre Contains books, theses, reports Contains link to Connecting-Africa which provides access to over 35,000 documents.

Archive of African Journals Scholarly journals published in Africa and digitized by the African eJournals Project. There is a search function available on the page.

African Law Library Offers free resources on law in Africa.

Africa Online Digital Library Maintained by the Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online and the African Studies Center at Michigan State University. Provides access to full-text materials, including images, primary documents, films, videos, television programs, podcasts, and other materials.

DISA: Digital Innovation South Africa Not all items here are scholarly. There is an emphasis on South African History, 1950-1994.

Africa.Bib Does not contain full-text and does not interact with Hofstra University’s Journal Finder. It will assist students in finding periodical, and other, literature on Africa. You can search to see if Hofstra holds the journal title retrieved by cutting and pasting the journal title in Journal Finder on the Hofstra University Library web page. If we do not hold the journal you can use Interlibrary Loan giving this site as your as your source.

South African National ETD Portal An index to dissertations and theses.

African Journals Online A good source for peer-reviewed articles in all disciplines on Africa. Contains scientific and technological articles. It also contains some full-text. It does not interact with Journal Finder.

Africa Portal Largely policy-related and contains a vareity of resources, including policy papers. Maintained by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Makerere University and the South Africa Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA).

AllAfrica.com Most of the information on this site is from newspapers, news agencies and publications from all over the African continent. The site aggregates and distributes the reporting of more than 130 media organizations. An attempt is made to represent as many viewpoints as possible.

Africa Resource Not peer-reviewed but contains articles and essays on a wide-range of African topics. Please use non-peer reviewed work with care.

Africanews Source of news for Africa.

Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action (GALA) South Africa resource.

Directory of Free Arab Journals In Arabic. Covers the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Directory of Open Access Journals Peer reviewed open access journals in a variety of disciplines.

Bibliographies

EJAB: Electronic Journal of Africana Bibliography Bibliographies and essays on all aspects of the Africana experience.

Subject Guide

David Woolwine

Contact:

902C Axinn Library, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY 11549-1230

david.woolwine@hofstra.edu

Subjects: African Studies, Anthropology, Criminology, International Students, LGBTQ+ Studies, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Sociology

Major Organizations

African Studies Association The flagship professional organization for academics and others in African American Studies. Any student interested in working the field should explore this website. It is based in the United States.

African Studies Centre Leiden In the Netherlands. A variety of resources are available, including some open-access journals published by the Centre. The website is in English.