New and Noteworthy Library Acquisitions
Online Sources
Founded in 1875, Al-Ahram is the oldest and most reputable newspaper from Egypt and the Middle East. It is a daily newspaper that reaches across the political, social, economic and cultural scope of the nation in its reporting. al-Ahrām has long featured contributions from many of the Arab world’s most important literary figures and intellectuals. Neither is the story of al-Ahrām exclusively Egyptian, casting light on broader regional developments and debates. al- Ahrām covers the period 1880–2018 featuring full page-level digitization, with page views and searchable text. It offers scholars English and Arabic interfaces, options to download or print pages in high resolution, and crowd-source improvements to the OCRed text.
African Newspapers (1800’s – 1900’s)
A database of 40 searchable African newspapers covering the period from 1800 to 1922. Coverage is largely of English-language papers but a few in African languages are also included.
A collection of over 300 full-text major African literary titles of fiction, poetry, drama and non-fictional prose. For over 40 years, Heinemann’s African Writers Series published the key texts of modern African literature. It has a unique importance in the history of postcolonial writing. It includes works by Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, Steve Biko, Buchi Emecheta, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Doris Lessing, Nelson Mandela, Dambudzo Marechera, Christopher Okigbo, Okot p’Bitek and Tayeb Salih and other well-known and not-so-well-known authors. Each work is fully seachable for textual analysis. The collection also provides a full gallery of book covers. A wide geographic range is also represented: most of the works come from English-speaking countries in Western, Southern, and Eastern Africa, but there are also a number of volumes translated from French (from Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire) or Portuguese (from Mozambique).
Border and Migration Studies Online
This collection of primary source documents, archives, films, and ephemera relate to significant border areas and events from the 19th to 21st centuries. It offers researchers historical context and resources, from both personal and institutional perspectives, to the growing fields of border(land) studies and migration studies, as well as history, law, politics, diplomacy, area and global studies, anthropology, medicine, the arts, and more. The collection continues to expand, and at completion will include 100,000 pages of text, 175 hours of video, and 1,000 images. Materials in the collection are organized around fundamental themes of Border Identities, Border Enforcement and Control, Border Disputes, Border Criminologies, Maritime Borders, Human Trafficking, Sea Migration, Undocumented and Unauthorized Migration, and Global Governance of Migration.
This collection of primary and secondary source materials offers access to comparative documentation, analysis, and interpretation of major human rights violations and atrocity crimes worldwide, from 1900 to 2010. The collection includes multiple media formats and content types for each selected event or human rights theme, including Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Darfur, and more than 30 additional subjects. Resources for each theme or event guide users through the full scope of the event, from the historical context that made such violations possible through the international response, prosecution of perpetrators, and steps toward rebuilding. The collection will continue to grow to include 75,000 pages of text and 150 hours of video.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia: African History
Peer-reviewed full-text articles and in-depth overviews of the major areas of research in African history. Entries include audio, visual, and video materials, with links to digitized archives and primary sources.
Oxford African American Studies Center
The Oxford African American Studies Center provides access to more than 7,500 articles by top scholars in the field. The core content includes several reference works with print counterparts – Africana: the Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experiences, the Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895, the Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present, Black Women in America (Second Edition, edited by Darlene Clark Hine), and the African American National Biography (over 6,000 biographies). At launch, the site will include hundreds of biographies from this project with new entries added as part of the regular update program. In addition to these core reference works, the Center draws on other key resources from Oxford’s reference program, including the Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature and selected articles from other major reference titles. Over 1,000 images, primary sources with specially written commentaries, and over 100 maps have been collected to enhance this reference content. Over 100 charts and tables offer information on everything from demographics to government and politics to business and labor to education and the arts. (Updated several times per year)
JSTOR: The Scholarly Journal Archive
JSTOR is a full-text journal database which provides access to more than 1,200 titles in the fields of African-American studies, anthropology, architecture, Asian studies, biological sciences, botany, ecology, economics, education, film, finance, folklore, history, language, literature, mathematics, middle east studies, music, philosophy, political science, population/demography, religion, sociology, and statistics. Coverage begins with volume one of each title and continues to within 3 to 5 years of the most current issue, depending on the title. The “moving wall” represents the time period between the last issue available in JSTOR and the most recently published issue of a journal; it is specified by publishers in their license agreements with JSTOR. Graphs, photographs, and other images are included. UW-Madison Libraries have acquired the following JSTOR collections: Arts & Sciences I-XIV; Biological Sciences; Business; Ecology & Botany I-II; Health & General Sciences; Ireland; Language & Literature; Music. (Updated irregularly)
This journal database covers subjects in the humanities and social sciences, representing primarily French and Francophone scholarly publications. Since February 2006, the National Library of France has been involved with this project. UW-Madison library subscribes to Cairn’s humanities and social sciences package which includes 218 journals, most with articles in French, but a few in English. Subject areas include law, economics, business, geography, history, literature and language, philosophy, psychology, communications, education, political science, and sociology. To use the Cairn database, stay on the homepage with the Revues tab highlighted. Type a keyword or words in the top box, or select journals by discipline or title. Please note: a few of the search results might not allow access, as the UW-Madison library does not subscribe to all of the journal titles included in Cairn.
Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO) is the world’s largest online resource of documents and articles devoted to research, analysis, and scholarship on international politics and related fields, including security studies, global finance, diplomatic practice, humanitarian law, global governance, development studies, and environmental studies. With more than 500,000 pages aggregated from 300 international publishing institutions, CIAO is a unique and valuable archive and cross-searchable library of full-text articles from government research organizations, independent think tanks, university analysis centers, and scholarly journals.
Interdisciplinary resource of over 1,000 issue-based documentaries and independent films from the U.S. and other countries. Topics include: race and gender studies, human rights, globalization and global studies, multiculturalism, international relations, criminal justice, the environment, bioethics, health, political science, and current events, psychology, arts, literature, and more. Clips, playlists, etc., can be integrated into web pages and learning management systems either as links or embeds. (Complete: not updated)
GenderWatch is a gender, women, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) issues database with thousands of English-language full-text articles from over 200 magazines, academic journals, regional publications, and newsletters. Earliest articles are from 1970; most are from the 1990s to the present. (Updated quarterly)
CAMP (Cooperative Africana Materials Project)
The Cooperative Africana Materials Project (CAMP) was founded in 1963 as a joint effort by research libraries throughout the world and the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) to promote the preservation of publications and archives concerning the nearly fifty nations of Sub-Saharan Africa. CAMP acquires and preserves materials in microform and digital formats. CAMP collects newspapers, journals, government publications, personal and corporate archives, and the personal papers of scholars and government leaders. CAMP’s materials are in many African and European languages, including Swahili, Portuguese, French, Zulu, Xhosa, English, and German.
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection is an extensive map collection owned by the Perry-Castañeda Library at The University of Texas at Austin. Many of the maps in the collection have been scanned and are available online, and most of these maps are public domain.
PubMed comprises more than 28 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.
World Constitutions Illustrated (HeinOnline)
Constitutions for every country in the original language along with at least one English translation. Includes expert commentary, the complete set of the British and Foreign State Papers, and other significant Sources such as Country Studies, the World Fact Book, Annual Human Rights Reports Submitted to Congress by the U.S. Department of State, and much more. Each country is linked directly to relevant primary and secondary sources. It includes the current constitution for every country in its original language format and an English translation, as well as substantial constitutional histories for countries such as Australia, Brazil, China, France, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and many more. It also includes constitutional periodicals, thousands of classic books, links to scholarly articles and online resources, and bibliographic references.
The WDL makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures and significant historical documents on one site, in a variety of ways. Content on the WDL includes books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, journals, prints and photographs, sound recordings, and films.
WDL items can be browsed by place, time, topic, type of item, language, and contributing institution. The search feature can be used to search all of the metadata and descriptions and the full text of printed books on the site.
Print Sources
The library has acquired many monographs about Africa by African and non-African authors from African and non-African publishers. These books can be found on The library Catalog by title, author, subject, publisher and other access points.
For questions, please email Emilie Songolo, the African Studies Librarian who is the curator of the African Studies collections.