Anthropology 26/Black Studies 20:
African Cultures & Societies
Spring 2008
- Historical & Contemporary Background
- Current News From Africa
- Help and Other Useful Tips
- Citing Sources
Historical & Contemporary Background
Five College Library Catalog: Catalog to all books, music, videos, online resources, etc., in Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, Smith and UMass libraries. Search all together or search one library at a time.
Academic OneFile and Academic
Search Premier: Indexes to articles in many disciplines. Combines popular and scholarly sources. Some references back to 1975.
Encyclopedia of African History (Reference DT 20 E53 2005): Multi-volume
encyclopedia devoted to history of Africa. More specialized and
scholarly than a general encyclopedia. Good for background.
The
World Factbook: Current, brief information (mostly statistics)
about individual countries, compiled by the CIA. Very good for regional
and individual country maps; Background Notes: More narrative surveys of history and politics as well as "factual" information from U.S. Department of State.
Africa South of the Sahara and African Studies Internet Resources: Two of the best "metasites", collections of links to information about Africa and African studies -- contemporary and historical.
Encyclopedia of World Cultures Vol 9: Africa & the Middle East (Reference GN 307 E53 1991) Brief profiles of ethnic groups by name.
Africa South of the Sahara (Reference DT 351 A37) Latest is 2007
volume. Annual survey country by country.
Key Events in African History (Reference DT 20 E35 2002): Topical
chapters survey key events, movements, issues. Brief bibliographies.
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: Africa Maps
: Many interesting digital maps from a collection at the Univrsity of Texas
Current News From Africa Over the Web
AllAfrica.com A non-profit service that collects content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, which are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced by AllAfrica.
Do you want to get an RSS feed (a continuous news feed) from AllAfrica.com to support your projects on individual countries?
RSS with Firefox: With Firefox as your browser, go to the page for RSS feeds from the bottom of the first page of AllAfrica.com, click on the page from which you can select a topic for a feed, then go to Bookmarks and choose "Organize bookmarks". Next go to file and "Add a new live bookmark". Name your live bookmark and copy the link for the feed from AllAfrica.com into the link location. Now you can drag the new "live feed" folder to your toolbar and check your news from Africa anytime.
RSS with Macs: Just find the link for the feed you want on AllAfrica.com and create a bookmark. The Mac senses whether the bookmark is a live feed.
How To Get Help and Other Useful Tips
Ask for help! Reference
and research advice from the experts. Or just Ask
Us on email.
Do you need a book or article not in the Amherst College Library? Check out Getting material not in the Library for instructions.
Citing Sources
Be sure to credit the sources you use for a research project -- whether printed books and journals or online texts, websites, etc. The quick citation guide in the Chicago Manual of Style Online tells you how to cite all kinds of sources. Or use The Chicago Manual of Style at the Reference Desk.Do you have questions about research in this course? Contact Margaret Adams Groesbeck (email:magroesbeck; voice: x2098)