Subjects

The collection covers the whole African continent. Disciplines: anthropology, sociology, history, philosophy, economics, political science, women's studies, management and policy studies, law, religion, education, socio-linguistics, literature and art. Languages: English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Afrikaans, and various African languages.

Materials

Apart from books, journals and some newspapers, the library has an extensive film collection, photographs, development plans on microfiche, and an archival section. Many publications are available online and the library gives access to diverse databases – a.o. the historical African Newspapers database - and other digital sources.

The collection of printed material (books, journals, maps) and the DVD collection are for the biggest part placed in open stacks at the African Studies Centre Leiden Library and partly in closed stacks of the University Library.

The collection in the African Studies Centre Library is arranged in order of arrival. All items are indexed using the African Studies Thesaurus and can be found and requested using either the African Studies Centre Leiden Library Catalogue (separate section) or the Leiden University Libraries Catalogue (general). The items will be delivered at the location of preference.

Consult our Search Tools for more information on how to find African Studies resources.

The Find-it guide offers some guidelines on how to find certain resources, such as articles, journals or films, and how to use the ASCL’s online catalogue. A number of other relevant sources for each type of material are also suggested.

Find other Africa-related resources holds a selection of links to various sources of information on Africa, by other institutions and organizations.