Institute of Commonwealth Studies Strong holdings in political ephemera, such as election material. Covers all Commonwealth countries with particularly strong holdings for South and southern Africa.
Institute of Education Extensive collection of educational material at primary and secondary levels relating to Africa, especially for Anglophone countries.
Senate House Library Senate House Library is the central library for the University of London and holds a large number of Africa-related materials.
University College London Library Excellent research library covering all fields. Particularly good for African studies in anthropology, sociology, development and agriculture.
London (Other)
British Library The UK's national library with excellent holdings of material on and from Africa. It has a significant African language collection.
Cambridge University Library Excellent research library covering all fields. The Royal Commonwealth SocietyCollection is housed in the Main University Library. The African Studies Centre Library which is housed separately has a stock of over 30,000 books. A high priority is placed on obtaining material published in Africa.
SCOLMA – Libraries and Archives SCOLMA is the UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa. Website lists Libraries and Archives in SCOLMA, together with detailed descriptions of their collections.
University of Durham Library General coverage of Africa but particularly strong on North Africa and Islamic Africa, especially Sudan.
University of Leeds Library African holdings are distributed throughout the arts and social sciences collections in particular. Recent acquisitions have focused on the colonial and post-colonial eras, and include sets of Church Missionary Archives on microfilm. South African history is also well represented, and holdings include South African newspapers on microfilm.
Libraries in Europe
African Music Archive Modern African music archive in Germany. It includes vinyl, audio and videotapes, CDs, DVDs, and newspaper clippings. Covers sub-Saharan Africa but with an emphasis on Ethiopia, Ghana, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania.
Basler Afrika Bibliographien Based in Switzerland the library collection concentrates on Namibia and southern Africa, but also covers other sub-Saharan African countries.
Frobenius Institute: Ethnological Library This is the oldest and largest ethnological library in Germany. The Africana collection includes mainly anthropological literature, but also archaeological and prehistoric publications.
Jahn Library for African Literatures The Jahn Library is based at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies, University of Mainz and collects widely in the field of African literature.
mission 21: Archives & Library Based in Switzerland the library covers a range of subjects. The Africana collections primarily include material on Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan and Tanzania.
CAMP Cooperative Africana Materials Project (CAMP) promotes the preservation of publications and archives concerning Sub-Saharan Africa. CAMP also aims to make these materials in microform available to researchers. SOAS Library subscribes to this project and staff and students are able to request material from CAMP. Requests should be submitted to SOAS Library’s Interlibrary Loans Section.