Libraries and archives for African studies

University of London

• Institute for Advanced Legal Studies Library Strong holdings in African law, especially for the Anglophone countries and the southern African countries using Roman-Dutch law.
• Institute of Commonwealth Studies Strong holdings in political ephemera, such as election material. Covers all Commonwealth countries with particularly strong holdings for South and southern Africa.
• Institute of Education Extensive collection of educational material at primary and secondary level relating to Africa, especially for Anglophone countries.
• LSE Library (British Library of Political and Economic Science) Specialises in the social sciences, especially politics and economics, finance and business. Very good on African government publications and South African politics and economics.
• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Extensive collection in the field of international public health and tropical medicine, including Africa.
• Senate House Library Senate House Library is the central library for the University of London and holds a large number of Africa related materials.
• University College London Library Excellent research library covering all fields. Particularly good for African studies in anthropology, sociology, development and agriculture.

London (Other)

• British Library Reference Library The UK's national library with excellent holdings of material on and from Africa. It has a significant African language collection.
• Commonwealth Secretariat: Library & Archives The Library covers a broad subject range including politics, international relations, economics, education, health, gender and environment.
• The National Archives The library’s Africana collection consists of approximately 500 monographs, 250 pamphlets, 5 journals and 3 electronic resources relating to Africa.

Libraries in the rest of the UK

• The Africa Desk This site contains information on specialist Africanist libraries within the UK and Europe together with information on African studies centres in the UK and directories of African and UK scholars.
• Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House Specialises in the history and current affairs - political, economic and social - of the Commonwealth and sub-Saharan Africa.
• Cambridge University Library Excellent research library covering all fields. The Royal Commonwealth Society Collection is housed in the Main University Library. The African Studies Centre Library which is housed separately has a stock of over 30,000 books. A high priority is placed on obtaining material published in Africa.
• British Library for Development Studies Comprises the largest collection of economic and social development materials in Europe. It closely supports teaching and research at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.
• Religious Society of Friends in Britain (Quakers): Library and Archives Houses books, pamphlets and manuscripts relating to Quaker connections to Africa.
• SCOLMA – Libraries and Archives SCOLMA is the UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa. Website lists Libraries and Archives in SCOLMA, together with detailed descriptions of their collections.
• University of Birmingham Information Services The African collections support the teaching and research of the University's Centre of West African Studies, focusing mainly on Anglophone West Africa.
• University of Durham Library General coverage of Africa but particularly strong on North Africa and Islamic Africa, especially Sudan.
• University of Leeds Library African holdings are distributed throughout the arts and social sciences collections in particular. Recent acquisitions have focussed on the colonial and post-colonial eras, and include sets of Church Missionary Archives on microfilm. South African history is also well represented, and holdings include South African newspapers on microfilm.

Libraries in Europe

• Africa south of the Sahara: Libraries: Europe Provides links to, and descriptions of collections with African related material within Europe. Website is compiled by Stanford University Library.
• African Music Archive Modern African music archive in Germany. It includes vinyl, audio and videotapes, CDs, DVDs, and newspaper clippings. Covers sub-Saharan Africa but with an emphasis on Ethiopia, Ghana, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania.
• African Studies Centre (ASC) = Afrika Studiecentrum Based in Leiden, Netherlands, the ASC has excellent collections on the whole of Africa concentrating on the humanities and social sciences.
• Basler Afrika Bibliographien Based in Switzerland the library collection concentrates on Namibia and southern Africa, but also covers other sub-Saharan African countries.
• Frobenius Institute: Ethnological Library This is the oldest and largest ethnological library in Germany. The Africana collection includes mainly anthropological literature, but also archaeological and prehistoric publications.
• GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Information Centre: Africa Library The Africa Library of the GIGA Information Centre collects literature on economic, political and social developments in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Library Based in Switzerland the Library specialises in international relations and development in an interdisciplinary manner (law, history, political science, social sciences, economics, etc.).
• ISCTE - Lisbon University Institute. Central Library of African Studies = Biblioteca Central de Estudos Africanos BCEA, the Portuguese Central Library of African Studies is a Lisbon-based reference and research library on the social and human sciences and covers the entire African continent.
• Jahn Library for African Literatures The Jahn Library is based at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies, University of Mainz and collects widely in the field of African literature.
• mission 21: Archives & Library Based in Switzerland the library covers a range of subjects. The Africana collections primarily include material on Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan and Tanzania.
• University of Frankfurt, University Library, Special Collection "Africa South of the Sahara " A wide range of disciplines are covered on all African regions with the exception of the Mediterranean neighbouring countries, Mauritania, West Sahara, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia.
• Nordic Africa Institute Library = Nordiska Afrikainstitutet The Library at the Nordic Africa Institute specialises in contemporary Africa.
• Zentrum Moderner Orient, Bibliothek Based in Germany the Library has a collection of ethnological and political works dealing with Africa.

Libraries in Africa

Africa south of the Sahara: Libraries: Africa Provides links to, and descriptions of collections within Africa. Website is compiled by Stanford University Library.

Libraries in North America

• Africa south of the Sahara: Libraries: North America Provides links to, and descriptions of collections with African related material within North America. Website is compiled by Stanford University Library.
• CAMP Cooperative Africana Materials Project (CAMP) promotes the preservation of publications and archives concerning Sub-Saharan Africa. CAMP also aims to make these materials in microform available to researchers. SOAS Library subscribes to this project and staff and students are able to request material from CAMP. Requests should be submitted to SOAS Library’s Interlibrary Loans Section .