Databases

  • Accessibility

  • Free access
  • Restricted access
  • Always from the Nordic Africa Institute

An alphabetical listing of electronic resources of interest for those searching for literature on Africa can be found below.

For more references please see our library catalogue, AfricaLit, and Africa-Wide Information, as well as other library catalogues.

Alphabetical listing of bibliographic databases

AfricaBib. Five bibliographic databases: Africana Periodical Literature, African Women, Women Travelers, Explorers and Missionaries to Africa: 1763-2004, Islam in contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa, and Kenya Coast.
In April 2013 the database Quarterly Index of African Periodical Literature will be fully integrated into AfricaBib. QIAPL is a database with metadata of 51005 articles from over 750 mostly scholarly periodicals published in Subsaharan Africa.
http://www.africabib.org/

African Studies Abstracts Online. Provides an overview of articles from periodicals and edited works on Africa in the field of the social sciences and humanities available at the African Studies Centre Library, Leiden. http://www.ascleiden.nl/Library/Abstracts/ASA-Online/

Africa-Wide Information. A combination of three databases — South African Studies, African Studies and African HealthLine — providing access to more than 4 million records, some with full-text links.
The three databases are a combination of files from Africa, Europe and the USA, including a major part of the collection of the Nordic Africa Institute Library. Africa-Wide Information gives information on all aspects of Africa from the 19th century to the present.
Topics covered include: politics, history, economics, business, mining, natural sciences, environment, development, social issues, anthropology, literature, language, law, music, tourism and much more.
Sources include books, periodicals and magazines articles, radio and television broadcasts, newspapers, pamphlets, maps, reports, theses and music recordings and many others.
Africa-Wide Information is provided by NISC (National Inquiry Services Centre).
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.asp?custid=s3912686&profile=web&defaultdb=awn

African Writers Series. An online edition of modern African literature including 318 volumes (out of 365) of fiction, poetry, drama and non-fictional prose. http://collections.chadwyck.co.uk/home/home_aws.jsp 

Aluka. Struggles for freedom in Southern Africa. A collection of documents and images, including periodicals, nationalist publications, records of colonial government commissions, local newspaper reports, personal papers, correspondence, UN documents, out-of-print and other particularly relevant books, oral testimonies, life histories, and speeches brought together by the Aluka Digital Library. http://www.aluka.org/

The Anthropological Index Online. Based on the journal holdings of The Anthropology Library at the British Museum (Museum of Mankind), which receives periodicals in all branches of anthropology, from academic institutions and publishers. http://aio.anthropology.org.uk/aiosearch/

ASKIA - Access to Scientific Knowledge in Africa. United Nations Economic Commission for Africa's federated search portal for scientific and socio-economic information on Africa from several different sources - including Open Access literature, commercial databases, online journals, (UN)ECA publications, etc. http://askia.uneca.org/

Connecting Africa. A service that provides access to African research information and materials produced in the Netherlands and elsewhere. http://www.connecting-africa.net/

DART-Europe E-theses Portal. Search electronically published open access dissertations and theses from more than 500 universities in close to 30 European countries. http://www.dart-europe.eu/

IlissAfrica - Internet Library Sub-Saharan Africa. Find literature, internet resources, contacts and further information concerning African Studies, http://www.ilissafrica.de/en/

ISI Web of Knowledge. Access to high quality, diversified scholarly information in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. http://www.isiknowledge.com/

JSTOR. Journal articles in full-text from journals covering various subjects. The articles are scanned from the year the journals started and some of them are from the 19th century. http://www.jstor.org/

The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD). Search for full text theses and dissertations in the NDLTD Catalog, http://www.ndltd.org/serviceproviders/scirus-etd-search

Nordicom databases on Nordic media research. The NCOM 1975-2006 database contains some 40.000 references to nordic media research publications. The succcessor NCOM continues from 2006/2007 including four different data types: nordic media researchers, research institutions, research projects and research publications.
NCOM 1975-2006: http://www.statsbiblioteket.dk/nordicom/
NCOM [2006/2007-]: http://nordicom.statsbiblioteket.dk

Publishing, Books & Reading in Sub-Saharan Africa : A Critical Bibliography. An online version of the book with the same title, http://www.hanszell.co.uk/cgi-bin/online/pbrssa.shtml

Population Index. Abstracts of demographic literature published in the period 1986–2000. http://popindex.princeton.edu/

SA Media. Database containing more than 3 million newspaper and periodical articles within Social sciences, Politics, Economy and more. Searchable through keywords and topics, articles viewable as pdfs. Focused mainly on southern Africa. http://www.samedia.uovs.ac.za/

UNBISNET, United Nations Bibliographic Information System. References to UN documents and publications, articles and books about the UN, speeches of the General Assembly from 1983-, voting records and more. http://unbisnet.un.org/

More databases:

Uppsala University Library, http://www.ub.uu.se/en/Search/Databases/
or check with your local library.

New db: SA Media

As of January 2013 you have access to the database SA Media from NAI. 3+ million articles mainly focused on southern Africa.

ADVICE!

University and college libraries have access to different electronic resources. The databases and journals presented here can be available at your local library.

Ask the library

Do you need help to find information, please use our reference service, Ask the library.

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