Brooks Library Research Guides: Africana & Black Studies

Mapping History

A project at the University of Oregon, Mapping History contains modern maps illustrating historical topics in American, European, Latin and African history.  Requires Shockwave Player 11.0--a free installation from Adobe.

Modern Atlas of African History
Print Location: Ref G2446 S1 F74 1976

Contains 70 maps (minimal text) of themes or events in African history. Also includes a select bibliography in which the number of each map is given first, followed by letters signifying longitude and numbers signifying latitude.

Oxford Reference Online: Maps

This title now includes over 775 maps, with locator, physical and political maps for each country, over 120 island maps, state maps for North America, Canada, and Mexico, and more than 100 city maps.  It is part of a suite of reference materials available through the subscription database Oxford Reference Online.  The database is available in full from the CWU library's homepage under "Research" -- "Databases by Title".

For digital collections of original maps, see also the research guide section "Images Online & in Databases".

African Biographical Dictionary
Print Location: Ref DT18 B76 1994

Looks at Sub-Saharan Africa and the island nations of the Indian Ocean. It excludes North Africa and the Mediterranean Basin. Entries are 500 to 1000 words, categorized by nation and field.

Oxford African American Studies Center

Includes the full text of four Oxford publications:  Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (2nd Edition), Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895, Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present, Black Women in America (2nd ed.), and African American National Biography.  It also includes articles from within the Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature, the Oxford Companion to Black British History, and other major reference titles (listed here http://www.oxfordaasc.com/public/books/other_reference_titles.jsp).  Users can choose to view biographies, subject entries, primary sources, images, maps, or charts and tables when searching or browsing.

Encyclopedia of African Nations and Civilizations
Print Location: Ref DT14 .E43 2002

The first section discusses the economy and history of the five regions of Africa--Northern, Eastern, Western, Central and Southern. The next section looks at the continent's cultural development. Finally, the last and largest section lists each civilization alphabetically for an in-depth look at their history as well as providing pertinent facts and figures.  Search the library catalog or ask at the Reference Desk (509) 963-1021 for help in locating historical encyclopedias and dictionaries of other world regions and cultures.

Encyclopedia of Black Studies
Print Location: Ref Call # E185 .E554 2005

Includes bibliographical references (p. 491-506) and index

Gale Virtual Reference Library

This is a collections of ebooks, available through the library's databases page under "Gale Virtual Reference Library." You can also search for the individual ebooks by title in Cattrax, our online catalog. The G.V.R. Library includes, among many others, the following electronic encyclopedias:

• Encyclopedia of Bilingual Education (2 vols., 2008);
• Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration (2 vols., 2006);
• Encyclopedia of Environment and Society (5 vols., 2007);
• Encyclopedia of American Immigration (4 vols., 2001);
• Encyclopedia of Immigration and Migration in the American West (2 vols., 2006);
• Encyclopedia of Educational Psychology (2 vols., 2008);
  
• Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society (3 vols., 2008);
• Encyclopedia of Social Psychology (2 vols., 2007).

(Search results in the Gale Virtual Reference Library will include all encyclopedias unless you click on a specific title and use the Quick Search box within the specific title page.)

Oxford African American Studies Center

Includes the full text of four Oxford publications:  Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (2nd Edition), Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895, Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present, Black Women in America (2nd ed.), and African American National Biography.  It also includes articles from within the Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature, the Oxford Companion to Black British History, and other major reference titles (listed here http://www.oxfordaasc.com/public/books/other_reference_titles.jsp).  Users can choose to view biographies, subject entries, primary sources, images, maps, or charts and tables when searching or browsing.

Oxford Companion to Black British History

The Oxford Companion to Black British History covers the history of black people within Great Britain, not its colonies, from Roman times to contemporary.  Entries in the encyclopedia include bibliographies for further research.  The Companion is part of an online database called Oxford Reference Online.  This subscription database is available directly through the CWU Library homepage under the webpage "Databases by Title".

AllAfrica.com

One of the largest websites on the Internet devoted to news in Africa.  Searchable by country / region, by topic, or by the day's headlines or most viewed pages.

Newspaper Source: Ebsco

Provides cover-to-cover full text for 25 national & international newspapers. The database also contains selective full text for more than 335 regional (U.S.) newspapers. In addition, full text television & radio news transcripts are also provided.

JSTOR

Our subscription to JSTOR (short for 'Journal Storage') contains every issue of over 600 core scholarly journals in the arts, humanities, the social sciences, as well as the natural and applied sciences.  These journals have been digitized back to the first issue published (in some cases that is the 1600s).  JSTOR also contains citations (bibliographic records) for more than 1,500 leading academic journals, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work.  (This is why "Include only content I can access" should not be checked, even if you are in a hurry.  Articles not available in JSTOR are often available in our other databases or through Interlibrary Loan.)

As always please consult the Reference Desk or the nearest librarian if you have any questions about finding articles in JSTOR or elsewhere.

Academic Search Complete

A scholarly, multi-disciplinary database containing more than 5,300 full-text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed, scholarly journals, and with indexing and abstracting for more than 9,300 journals.  Academic Search Complete is an EBSCO database, and like most EBSCO databases it includes a "Choose Databases" link near the top of the page that enables you to search multiple EBSCO databases at the same time (an EBSCO multi-disciplinary database that is good to search at the same time as ASC is "MasterFILE Premier").

If the article whose title and abstract you found is not available in the Academic Search Complete database try clicking on "Search for Full Text".  If that option does not provide you with the full-text of the article please consult a librarian or submit an Interlibrary Loan Request.  Many articles are readily available in another database or through Interlibrary Loan and we are here to help you get the information you need!

AfricaBib.org: African Women Bibliographic Database

A searchable index to over 35,000 items published from 1986 to present regarding African women.  Citations are for books and government documents, journal articles, chapters in books, theses and dissertations conference papers; and videos.

eHRAF World Cultures
eHRAF World Cultures – the digital version of the Human Relations Area Files – is a cross-cultural database that contains more than 350,000 pages of descriptive information on cultures, diversity and ethnic groups of the world.  The annually-growing eHRAF database is unique in that the information is organized by cultures and ethnic groups and the full-text sources are subject-indexed at the paragraph level.  The diversity of information includes full-text books, journal articles, and dissertations.

This database supports CWU curricula across a variety of disciplines -- anthropology, social studies, history, sociology, geography, language, multicultural studies, political science, human development, arts, and medicine - if you are in one of these programs this database will be your friend!

Please ask the Reference Help Desk, 1st Floor Brooks Library or (509) 963-1021 for aid in searching this resource, and / or try the tutorial materials available from the homepage of eHRAF (look under "Using HRAF" on the left) or at this link.

Essay & General Literature Index
This is a bibliographic database that cites essays, articles contained in collections of essays, and miscellaneous works published in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada.  The database now includes nearly 86,000 essays drawn from almost 700 collections.  Essays from more than 300 volumes and more than 20 annuals and serial publications are added annually.  Full bibliographic information on the collective titles indexed is included.

The focus is on the humanities and social sciences, with subject coverage ranging from economics, political science, and history to criticism of literary works, drama, and film.  Citations include articles published as early as 1985.  Each citation links to a list of other works in the collection, others by the author, and others on the subject, as well as to an entry for the source collection.  Works of literary criticism are searchable by names of fictional characters and by the titles of literary works.

The database is searchable by personal and corporate author, title, subject, and keyword, and also by Dewey and LC classification numbers, publisher, publication year, ISBN and ISSN, series, and country of publication.

For aid in locating the full text of articles found within this index, please stop by the 1st Floor Reference Help Desk or call the desk at 509.963.1021.

Chronology of World Slavery
Print Location: Ref HT861 .R63 1999

Quick reference but also informative as to the sheer scale and variety of slavery around the world and throughout history. The chronological entries are succinct and divided by world regions. There are also a number of historical documents on slavery. See also: A Historical Guide to World Slavery; Reference (1st Floor), Call #: HT861 .H59 1998

Harvard Guide to African-American History
Print Location: Ref E185 .H326 2001

Describes research materials in a variety of formats, and includes a chronological bibliographies divided by theme (General, Historiography, Race Relations, Government, Family, Religion, Education, etc.)

Digital Schomburg: Images of African-Americans from the 19th Century

Includes digital collections such as "African American Women Writers of the 19th Century;" "Images of African Americans from the 19th Century;" and "Studies Dedicated to Fernando Ortiz (1880-1969): A Bibliography of Afro-Cuban Culture."

New York Public Library Digital Gallery

Some 600,000 digital images from within the NYPL's collections.  Browse by subjects alphabetically listed or by suggested disciplines.  Look at this website if you need images of postcards, posters, photographs, etc. of technological changes, specific people and historic events throughout America...not just New York.

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database

Between the 1500s through the 1800s, over 10 million Africans were forced onto slave trade vessels and shipped to the Americas.  This database, housed at Emory University, is searchable and provides information down to specific slave traders and owners and the names of the trading vessels as well as broader information, such as the number of ships flown under a certain country's flag.  It contains excellent maps, charts, graphs and images, and includes brief essays on aspects of the slave trade, such as the trade in Africa, the Middle Passage, and how it came to an end.  Lesson plans and a list of web resources are also included.

African Studies Gateway on H-Net

This is a gateway to a number of listserv groups participating in online discussion networks regarding the history of Africa and its peoples. Students are welcome to read the entries on the listserv or join up and participate. H-Net is also a good place to check for reviews of books on the subject.

African-American Mosaic

From the Library of Congress, this excellent exhibition "covers the nearly 500 years of the black experience in the Western hemisphere. The Mosaic surveys the full range size, and variety of the Library's collections, including books, periodicals, prints, photographs, music, film, and recorded sound." Includes digital facsimiles of historical letters and more.

Infomine
INFOMINE is a wonderful resource featuring well organized access to important university level research and educational tools on the Internet.  INFOMINE is a collection of over 100,000 annotated and indexed links (26,000 librarian created links and 75,000 plus robot/crawler created links).  Substantive databases, electronic journals, guides to the Internet for most disciplines, textbooks and conference proceedings are among the many types of resources included.  The general categories are:

• BioAg,
• Business,
• Cultural Diversity,
• E-Journals,
• Government Publications,
• Maps and GIS,
• Physical Science, Engineering, CS and Math,
  
• Social Sciences and Humanities,
• and the Visual and Performing Arts.

Note: You can search in multiple categories at the same time.  This is good because knowledge is never ever in only one place.

The INFOMINE library contains links to and information about databases, electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, mailing lists, online library card catalogs, articles, directories of researchers, and many other information repositories.  You can search by Author, Subject, Title, Description, Full Text, and Keyword.  You can also choose the resource type that you wish to search, and if you want to search free sources, fee-based sources, or both ('both' is recommended because we might be able to help you find it for free elsewhere). 
Help in searching INFOMINE is available through this Site Map page.

Internet Public Library
The Internet Public Library (ipl2) digital collections include many different resources organized by Subject, Newspapers and Magazines, Special Collections created by the ipl2, a variety of Pathfinders on diverse topics, and special collections for Kids and Teens.

ipl2 offers thousands of annotated, reviewed links covering all academic disciplines.  The available subject categories are:

• Arts & Humanities
• Business & Economics
• Computers & Internet
• Education
• Entertainment & Leisure
• Health & Medical Sciences
• Law, Government & Political Science
• Reference Resources
• Science & Technology
• Social Sciences
• Regional & Country Information

(You can, of course, search all categories simultaneously.)

The Newspapers and Magazines portion of ipl2 contains links to newspapers across the US and around the world, as well as to magazines and journals classified by subject category.  (All of the annotated links can be searched simultaneously.)

ipl2 also has some permanent exhibits - collections of unique, multimedia presentations.  From lighthouse photographs to the classics of Western music, there is something here for everyone!

The ipl2 Pathfinders are a particularly excellent place to begin your research.  The Pathfinders - extensive annotated lists of excellent resources for a specific topic - can be searched by Subject and Alphabetically.  Looking through a couple of Pathfinders that are similar to your chosen/assigned topic can be of immense help to you.

Much of the information you would find through the ipl2 resides on other websites or in other places and would be cited accordingly.  However some information is hosted on the ipl2 site and citation guidelines are provided.  (Additional assistance with citations is available from the CWU Writing Center and the Excellent OWL at Purdue University.)

And finally, a public library would not be complete without story hour.  The children's stories that they have available will not take you an hour to read - but they do make a nice study break.

Note: if you find a resource through the Internet Public Library that we should highlight in one or more of these Research Guides please let me know.  Thank you.

Internet Public Library Arts & Humanities Resources

Interesting and sometimes educational websites are featured on this annotated, topical gateway of websites.  Each website is recommended and annotated by a librarian working for the Librarians Internet Index as a quality resource.  You can also quickly group resources by domain type, so it is easy to see which sites are commercial, from organizations, and from the government.

OAIster Catalog of Digital Resources
OAIster is a catalog more than 25 million records of open access digital resource.  The Catalog was built by harvesting information from open access collections around the world  The digital resources in OAIster include items such as digitized books and articles, born-digital texts, audio files, images, and movies.

The OAIster Catalog is searchable by title, author/creator, subject, language, keyword and several other forms of metadata.  Searching in the OAIster Catalog is by Boolean Search (And, Or, Not).  Like playing chess the best way to become good at boolean searching is to do a lot of boolean searching.  Here are the 'basic moves' for searching the OAIster Catalog:

Combining the search terms 'Cat' and 'Dog' (Boolean)
    Cat and Dog
    Cat or Dog
    Cat not Dog
Note: 'and', 'or', & 'not' are in drop-down boxes to the left of the search boxes.

Plurals, truncation, and wildcards
    Use + for plurals (s and es)
    Use * for truncation
    Use # for a wildcard character
    Use ?N for up to N characters

Adjacent terms (proximity)
    Cat w Dog    (Cat is followed by Dog)
    Cat wN Dog  (Cat is followed by Dog with at most N terms between)
    Cat n Dog     (Cat is next to Dog, either order)
    Cat nN Dog   (Cat is within N terms of Dog, either order)

The available Limiters are Year, Document Type, and Language.  A Basic Search and an Expert Search interface is also available.  You can also create an account that will enable you to save searches.

NOTE:  Sometimes OAIster may direct you to items that are access restricted.  The Librarians in the ARC or at any of the service desks can help you with accessing information that is ‘access restricted’ and with any questions that you might have.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

From the New York Public Library, a variety of links to the NYPL's digital collections, online exhibitions, and more.

University of Wisconsin-Madison's African Studies Links

Thorough list of links to websites containing cultural, historical and literary information on African Studies.  The site is posted on the University of Wisconsin-Madison's African Studies Program.