No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Africa Research Central: A clearing house of African primary sources
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 April 2022
Extract
Research in the African humanities and social sciences presupposes an organised infrastructure of primary source materials - a network of archives, libraries, and museums where the raw materials of research are housed, ordered and safeguarded. For a variety of historical and contemporary reasons, the research infrastructure that scholars take for granted in northern countries is often weak and sometimes non-existent in Africa. Unequal north/south power relationships during and after colonialism have resulted in the scattering of a sizable portion of the African documentary and cultural heritage in collections beyond the borders of Africa. For the rich resources remaining in Africa, contemporary African development needs have sometimes put the creation and maintenance of an adequate institutional infrastructure toward the bottom of the list of national priorities. Africa Research Central is the response of two concerned academics to what we perceive as a worsening crisis.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © African Research & Documentation 2001
References
Primary sources are defined broadly to include a wide range of material providing firsthand testimony or evidence about an event or subject, both documentary (archives, manuscripts) and non-documentary (photographs, film, oral history and tradition, and artefacts).Google Scholar
Kathryn Green has a Ph.D. in African history from Indiana University and has done archival research on African history in Dakar, Abidjan, Ferkessedougou (Cote d'lvoire), Ouagadougou, Bobo Dioulasso and Bamako. Susan Tschabrun is a librarian at California State University, Fullerton. She has a Ph.D. in African history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master's in Library Science from UCLA, and has done archival research on African history in Khartoum and Wad Medani (Sudan). She has completed professional training in archival management and preservation and has served as archivist for a non-profit educational archive of international poster art.Google Scholar
Directories containing contact information for African repositories are usually published irregularly (e.g. the International Council on Archives’ International directory of archives), but even when they come out more frequently (e.g. the World of learning (Allen & Unwin)), they are usually only lightly revised or focus on a small subset of the total universe of primary source-holding institutions. Web directories (like the UNESCO Archives Portal at <http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_archives/>) limit their listings to institutions with a web presence, a major restriction in the case of African institutions.)+limit+their+listings+to+institutions+with+a+web+presence,+a+major+restriction+in+the+case+of+African+institutions.>Google Scholar
The ‘Access Reports’ were a brainchild of the African Studies Association's Africana Librarians Council (formerly Archives-Libraries Committee). Researchers were asked to voluntarily report information on archives in Africa using a questionnaire distributed in the ASA News. The questionnaires were returned to ASA headquarters where other researchers could consult them.Google Scholar
Even the maiden issue of the Journal of African history included an article on African archives: Phillip D. Curtin, ‘The archives of tropical Africa: a reconnaissance,’ Journal of African history I, 1 (1960): pp. 129-147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
African research & documentation, a journal published by an association of% librarians and others concerned with the provision of materials for African studies, with a large readership among researchers, may be an anomaly in this regard.Google Scholar
Work on the revised site was assisted by a joint grant from the divisions of Academic Affairs and Information Resources and Technology at the California State University, San Bernardino.Google Scholar
Africa Research Central is hosted on a web server at Michigan State University, thanks to the generosity of H-Net (Humanities and Social Sciences Online).Google Scholar
The current return rate for Africa Research Central is about 35% and would be higher if we did not count the institutions (e.g. some university libraries) that may not have returned the survey because they do not have any primary source holdings, or the countries where mail service is temporarily suspended.Google Scholar
In September 1998, shortly after the staff of the Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisa (INEP) entered the devastated research complex for the first time since the beginning of the civil conflict in Guinea-Bissau, Africa Research Central posted the first news of the massive damage that the archives, library, and museum had sustained during their occupation by Senegalese troops since June of that year. Throughout the fall and winter, the web site continued to post the information we received from INEP personnel, (especially Cornelia Giesing, but also former directors, Peter Mendy and Carlos Lopes), about the tragedy at INEP, including photo-documentation in 1999 testifying to the scale of the disaster and the early phases of reconstruction.Google Scholar
Hans, van der Hoeven and Joan, van Albada, Lost memory: libraries and archives destroyed in the twentieth century, Paris: UNESCO, 1996, p. 19.Google Scholar
A description of the Bosnian project may be found at <http://www.kakarigi.net/manu/ingather.htm>>Google Scholar