This tab lists our selection of useful electronic databases for African Studies. Some may require your Cambridge Raven login, especially if you are not on campus. These have been categorised as:
For a comprehensive list of online resources available to you, searchable by subject and keyword, please see the eresources & ejournals LibGuide.
Africabib.org - (open access) : bibliographic database consisting of approx. 225,000 African studies publications
Africa Bibliography (Raven login) : includes monographs, chapters, articles, and pamphlets published in English, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, Swahili, Spanish & Afrikaans.
Africa Yearbook Online (Raven login): covers major domestic political developments, the foreign policy and socio-economic trends in sub-Sahara Africa – all related to developments in one calendar year.
African Digital Research Repositories (Open Access): list of known repositories within the African continent compiled by the International African Institute as a service to African studies research and scholarship.
African History - Oxford Research Encyclopedia (Raven login): provides in-depth overviews of the major areas of research.
African Journals Online (Mostly Open Access): the world's largest and preeminent platform of African-published scholarly journals. AJOL is a Non-Profit Organisation that (since 1998) works to increase global & continental online access, awareness, quality & use of African-published, peer-reviewed research. Currently more than 150,000 articles are open access.
African Studies Abstracts Online (Open Access): quarterly overview of journal articles and edited works on Africa in the field of the social sciences and the humanities available in the ASC library (Leiden)
African Studies Companion Online (Raven login): contains over 1800 entries covering guides and resources for African languages, Africa cartography and maps, African film, African studies journals, magazines and newsletters, media guides and news sources for Africa, the African press, African studies library collections worldwide, national archives in Africa, centers of African studies and African studies programs worldwide, awards and prizes in African studies, and a wealth of other subjects.
International African Institute - African Publishers List (Open Access): List of current publishers on the continent, as well as other specialised publishing houses focusing on Africa outside the continent.
ACRAH Bibliographies (Open Access): These bibliographies are an English-language resource for people investigating issues of race and ethnicity in art and visual culture.
African Music Library (Open Access): They are documenting all music made in Africa, artist metadata, instruments, books, and articles that reference Music in Africa with a focus on data.
African Writers Series (Raven login): This online edition includes over 250 volumes of fiction, poetry, drama and non-fictional prose, including 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.
Al-Mandumah Database for Arabic resources (Raven login): provides access to a series of databases with full-text content of Arabic scientific conferences, dissertations and academic journals from 1921 to present day. Cambridge is trialing this database until June 25th 2023, we do apologise if it's discontinued after that.
AODL (Open Access): free universal access to cultural heritage materials from and about African countries and communities. Including digitized photographs, videos, archival documents, maps, interviews and oral histories in numerous African languages.
ArtStor (Raven login): Database of digital images & accompanying scholarly information for use in art history and other humanistic fields of learning including the related social sciences.
Black Authors Database, 1556-1922 (Raven login): Works by authors of African or African-American descent with a fascinating look at the creative efforts of black authors over three centuries. Compiled by the curators of the acclaimed Afro-Americana Imprints collection. Subjects include:
Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC): Collates a wide variety of digitised materials from across the Caribbean and beyond.
eHRAF Archaeology (Raven login): online database covering the prehistory of a sample of archaeological traditions around the world.
eHRAF World Cultures (Raven login): ethnographic collections covering all aspects of cultural and social life.
Ethnologue Languages of the World (Raven login): Search for and discover languages from across the globe. Fun to play around with!
GALA (Open Access): Founded in 1997 as an archive, the GALA Queer Archive (GALA) is a catalyst for the production, preservation and dissemination of information about the history, culture and contemporary experiences of LGBTIQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer) people in South Africa. Today GALA is the custodian of over 200 organisational and personal archival collections dating back to the 1940s. Download the collection guide to view the archive.
Monographs on African Artists (Open Access): This bibliography is limited to substantive monographs and exhibition catalogs about 20th-21st century African artists. Focusing on a single artist, these texts are usually written by a scholar or critic who has conducted art historical research on the artist and/or who has gathered for publication a wide range of images of the artist's work.
Stolen Tools (Open Access): Stolen tools is an anti-racist journal dedicated to centring the voices of racialised minorities within health inequalities research. The journal aims to provide a creative platform for diverse racialised voices to be emotionally expressive about racism rooted in academia, challenge their self-censorship in research and share knowledge in a way which is understandable by a diverse range of voices: not just academics.
World Heritage Sites : Africa (Raven login): serves researchers in African studies, anthropology, archaeology, architecture, art history, Diaspora studies, folklore and literature, geography, and history, as well as those focused on geomatics, advanced visual and spatial technologies, historic preservation, and urban planning.
Africa Confidential (Raven login): one of the longest-established specialist publications on Africa, with a considerable reputation for being first with in-depth news and analysis on significant political, economic and security developments across the continent.
African Activist Archive (Open Access): The African Activist Archive is preserving and making available online the records of activism in the United States to support the struggles of African peoples against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s. Here you'll find pamphlets, newsletters, leaflets, buttons, posters, T-shirts, photographs, and audio and video recording, as well as personal remembrances and interviews with activists an international directory of collections deposited in libraries and archives.
African Newspapers, the British Library Collection (Raven login): Nearly 60 African historical newspapers from the nineteenth century.
Black Newspaper Collection (Raven login): Ten Historical African American newspapers in the U.S. covering the period 1893-2010
Rand Daily Mail, 1902-1985 (Raven login): Quintessential reporting on South Africa from the Boer Wars to the apartheid era.
World Newspaper Archive: African Newspaper Series 1 1800-1922: (Raven login)
World Newspaper Archive: African Newspaper Series 2 1835-1925: (Raven login)
Encyclopedia of the Qu'ran (Raven login) : qur’ānic terms, concepts, personalities, place names, cultural history and exegesis
Mundus (Internet Archive) : Gateway to Missionary collections in the UK.