Library History 283 / BLST 121

You might start with the following sources to get background information or to contextualize primary sources:

• Reference Universe
  Searchable index of the library's entire reference collection, both print and electronic.

Encyclopedia of South Africa / edited by Krista Johnson, Sean Jacobs. LOCATION: AC Frost Reference / DT1714 .E53 2011 

Encyclopedia of African history / Kevin Shillington, editor. LOCATION: AC Frost Reference / DT20 .E53 2005

When searching for books in the 5 Colleges Catalog or WorldCat, use the following Subject Keywords to get started, and narrow down your search with appropriate keywords:

South Africa  History

• Historical Abstracts with Full Text (1955 to present)
  Scholarly literature about world history since 1450 (excluding the United States and Canada).
• Africa Knowledge Project (1999-Present)
  Africa Knowledge Project, known as AKP, promotes Critical African Studies. It disseminates Africa-centered, evidence-based knowledge on Africa and African Diaspora.
• African Writers Series
  Complete texts of the Heinemann's African Writers Series.
• JSTOR
  Full-text backfiles of over two thousand leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. (Alumni access)

• World Heritage Sites: Africa
  Digital resource covering the archaeology, history and culture of Africa through its heritage sites and landscape
• Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory Digital Archives
  The Nelson Mandela Digital Archive Project seeks to locate, document, digitize, and provide access to all archival materials related to Nelson Mandela.
• South African History Online
  SAHO’s aim is to promote history and the arts and to address the bias in written history as represented in South African educational and cultural institutions.
• Traces of Truth
  Documents relating to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
• University of Witwatersrand, Historical Papers
  This site provides a list of the digitized collections of the University of Witwatersrand's historical papers.

Print collections

As explained on the Primary Source Research Guide, you can use the 5 Colleges Catalog to identify collections of primary source material. Specific subjects include:

South Africa  History  Sources

You might also go to the Advanced Search and start with keywords related to your topic in one search box, and narrow down your search to primary source material by copying and pasting the following into another search box (just make sure the AND option is selected in the drop-down menu between search boxes). "archival resources" or archives or correspondence or diaries or interviews or notebooks or sketchbooks or "personal narratives" or photographs or sources or speeches 

• AllAfrica
  Content from newspapers, news agencies and publications from the African continent.