We're glad you asked!
Do get in touch with us at afr@lib.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions, have trouble accessing material, or if you have any suggestions for how to improve the guide!
The African Studies Library is situated within the Centre of African Studies at the University of Cambridge, and supports the research and teaching needs of the African Studies MPhil course. It also serves the rest of the University in the Undergraduate and Postgraduate study of Africa. We are open to the public! Our collection's particular focus is Africa south of the Sahara.
We are open with loan privileges to all Cambridge University students and members. Members of the public are welcome to come browse and read material in the Library.
Take a quick virtual tour with us on our Instagram HERE.
Materials
Services and Resources
The library's collection is undergoing re-classification from the Universal Decimal System to the Library of Congress system. Take a look at the floorplan below to help you navigate the Library ahead of your visit.
Take a look on iDiscover for any particular material you are seeking, and do send us an email at afr@lib.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions about finding materials ahead of your visit.
| Time | Opening Hours |
| Term (click for dates) |
9:00-17:00, Monday to Friday |
| Vacation |
9:30-17:00, Monday to Friday |
| Closed |
The Library usually closes for the winter holidays in December, and for Easter weekend in April.Please email afr@lib.cam.ac.uk for any queries during these times. |
Open Shelf Material can be Borrowed by all User Groups
Loan periods are as follows for open shelf material:
| User Type | Loan Period | Book Limit |
| Undergraduates | 7 Days | 8 Books |
| Postgraduates | 28 Days | 10 Books |
| Staff | 28 Days | 20 Books |
| Visiting Scholars | 14 Days | 10 Books |
| Public Cambridge Library Member | 7 Days | 8 Books |
The following materials cannot be renewed and have shorter loan periods:
| DVD & Video | 7 DAYS |
| Overnight Loans |
24 Hours Only If borrowing on a Friday, overnight loans will be due Monday. |
We don't operate an end of term recall, or set vacation borrowing.
Overnight loans remain as 24 hours only.
Please get in touch if you are interested in borrowing at afr@lib.cam.ac.uk.
Please return your borrowed materials to the African Studies Library:
Please use the self-issue desk to return your books, or place them on the office issue desk.
Click here for a full list of return options.
Do contact us with as much notice as possible before your visit so we can help you save time.
Fill out our online fetching form, providing as much information as possible about the items that you have found as being held in the library.
If you have any other queries, please email us at afr@lib.cam.ac.uk.
Click here to view our upcoming and past events.
We are delighted to announce that this year’s Audrey Richards Annual Lecture in African Studies will be given by Professor Amina Mama on Wednesday 22 May at 5pm. The venue is the Cavonius Centre, Gonville and Caius College, Harvey Court, West Road, Cambridge. The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception.
This lecture will map some of the shifting ethical and political concerns that have energised African scholarly production since the 1970’s, focusing on the anti-colonial and feminist interventions of two networks that have cultivated epistemic change. It examines how the non-governmental Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) grew into the largest scholarly network of continental Africans and produced an impressive corpus of continental knowledge. I argue that while feminist critiques were articulated within CODESRIA during the 1990’s, it was the mobilization of feminist scholars outside CODESRIA that eventually influenced the Council to pursue a more equitable research profile. The accounts of key actors highlight the importance of interpersonal relationships and collective spaces in the enunciation of African feminism on the continent. These examples document the ways in which epistemic changes are products of close interpersonal relational practices that characterise intellectual communities and the strategies they pursue. What do these developments in the continental African studies landscape imply for the ethics of transnational collaborations?
This event is open to all and is free of charge, but registration is required.
Register for online attendance here.
The Centre's annual seminar series is back every Monday from 4-5:30pm in room S1 of the Alison Richard Building, starting October 16th. Click the PDF link below to find more information.
Select eBooks
November 27th 2024
Tanzania
Das Deutsch-Ostafrika-Archiv : Inventar der Abteilung "German Records" im Nationalarchiv der Vereinigten Republik Tansania, Dar-es-Salaam / Bearb. von Eckhart G. Franz und Peter Geissler.
Due to sharing limitations this is available to Cambridge staff and students only. Please contact afr@lib.cam.ac.uk for more information.
November 19th 2024
The Documenting White Supremacy and its Opponents in the 1920s collection provides scholars with important documentary evidence of organized white nationalism in the 1920s along with the activity of organizations that actively resisted it. It prevents erasure of these historical events and centers the voices of those who worked to dismantle white supremacy.
https://dwso.revealdigital.org/
November 19th 2024
Some of these ebooks are publications by Observatoire européen du plurilinguisme and are part of a series of conference proceedings with a focus on multilinguism in Africa
November 19th 2024
The Papers of a South African Writer and Activist (1908-1968)
Regina Gelana Twala (née Mazibuko, 1908-1968), was born in the rural Indaleni Methodist mission station of South Africa’s Natal countryside. Raised amongst the country’s elite Black Christian middle class, Twala was educated in the most prestigious mission schools available to the country’s Black population. Her background and capabilities gave her the opportunity to be one of the few legally emancipated women in South Africa. While her cosmopolitan advice for women in Johannesburg’s Black newspaper columns (published in Bantu World in the 1930s) gained a devoted audience, Twala was first brought to the city through her first marriage, to the mining clerk, Percy Kumalo. After a drawn-out, frustrating divorce from Kumalo, Twala married Dan Twala, then the well-known and popular manager of Johannesburg's Bantu Sports Club who played an important role in South African sports, theater, and cinema. While Regina and Dan Twala lived separately from the 1950s, the fulfillment that their relationship brought is evidenced by the hundreds of letters they wrote to each other, in which they discuss everything from mundane details of their everyday life, to goals for Regina Twala's writing and intellectual ambitions (as well as Dan Twala's dreams for the Sports Club), to the tumultuous political details of life under apartheid in South Africa.
https://exhibits.stanford.edu/regina-gelana-twala
November 19th 2024
The Urban Africa Book Series (UABS) is an Open Access academic book series sponsored by the International African Institute and UCL Press with no author facing charges, run on a non-profit, non-commercial model. UABS is unique in providing critical, in-depth analysis of key contemporary issues affecting urban environments across the continent. It has a particularly strong interest in publishing work by scholars based in African contexts, and ensuring publications are widely accessible to African students and researchers, via Open Access publication.
The series aims:
• To publish a series with a distinctive African-centred approach compared to conventional urban studies work.
• To provide a high-profile platform to urban scholars from the African continent currently under-represented in urban studies.
• To bring the best work in African urban studies from the Northern academy and across the global South to African studies audiences.
The editors welcome proposals that address the above criteria. For more information, see https://www.internationalafricaninstitute.org/publishing/urbanafrica-book-series
November 5th 2024
From the University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) c. 1965-72
Paul La Hausse kindly gifted us these 13 bibliographies in 2024. They came into his possession when he was a member of the History Department at the University of the Witwatersrand between 1992 and 1997. All of them but one (PSB/1/7) state they were “Compiled in part fulfilment for the requirements of the Diploma in Librarianship, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.” and submitted to the Department of Bibliography, Librarianship, and Typography. We can guess that PSB/1/7 was also a dissertation or final project as it was published under the same department and has notes of thanks to a supervisor for their help. These bibliographies span from 1965-72. Paul’s links to Cambridge began when he was the Smuts Visiting Fellow in Commonwealth Studies in 1995/96 and continued through his association with the Centre of African Studies between 1998 and 2024. Until recently he was an Editor of the Journal of Southern African Studies and a member of the editorial committee of the British Academy’s Fontes Historiae Africanae.
Click here to view the full collection finding aid.
September 26th 2024
This is a collection of 10 miscellaneous items including pamphlets and government bulletins donated to us by Bill’s wife, Sarah, after he passed away in 2021. Bill was a civil servant and was Ambassador to Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde from 1979-1982. He was also the first Development Director at the University Cambridge from 1988.
The collection is made up of one box and contains 10 items. You may be interested in this collection if you’re researching any of the following:
Notable Document in the Collection:
Click here to view the full finding aid.
September 26th 2024
This new e-resource is available via the Databases A-Z.
The Visual History Archive (VHA) is an invaluable primary source repository, containing over 56,000 audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of genocides globally.
This collection grants access to the personal stories and individual experiences that embody the far-reaching impact of genocide, providing essential context to researchers and learners worldwide. Read more on the electronic collections blog.
September 11th 2024
The collection is made up of one box and contains 25 items (books & small pamphlets).
You may be interested in this collection if you’re researching any of the following:
Notable Documents in the Collection:
“Shaaban Robert is to the Swahili language what Shakespeare was to English. Acclaimed as the national poet, his publications have always been the touchstone of beauty of language, purity of spirit, and deep wisdom informed by African and Swahili culture in particular, but imbued with respect for and understanding of other cultures. Most prominent of his work is Kusadikika (To be believed), an allegorical work of an imaginary country or state in which injustices are perpetrated against all notions of justice, law and humanity. Published at the height of colonial occupation in Tanzania. Shaaban Robert kwa lugha ya Kiswahili ni sawa na Shakespeare kwa lugha ya Kiingereza. Akikubalika kama msahiri wa taifa, vitabu vyake daima vimekuwa kipimo cha juu cha uhondo wa lugha, usafi wa nia na hekima kutokana na utamaduni hususan wa Kiafrika na Waswahili lakini pia kwa jnsi alivyoelewa na kusheshimu tamadui nyingine. Katika vitabu vyake Kusadikika ndicho maarufu kushinda vyote. Hii ni hadithi ya kiistara juu ya nchi ambako dhulma inatawala kinyume na haki, sheria na utu. Kitabu kilichapishwa wakati ukoloni umetanda nchini Tanzania.”
Click here to view the full finding aid.
August 28th 2024
Life at Sea: Seafaring in the Anglo-American Maritime World 1600-1900 (Cambridge Login): documents pertaining to the transatlantic enslavement of African peoples.
Below you'll find a list of items that have been added to our LibGuide in recent times.
