Library

African Studies

Finding books, Reference Material & Journals

Finding books

The catalogue is the key to the collection; use it to find primary resources such as books, exam papers, journals and audiovisual items. Finding items in the library catalogue will help you refine your searching

A keyword search can help you find items on a specific topic, and can be achieved by using a combination of terms. Keyword Searching searches the whole record, for example, the search africa political economy will retrieve results containing ALL the words. Keyword searching tips.

Reference Material

The Library Reference collection contains a broad range of useful printed resources such as encyclopaedias, dictionaries, directories etc some examples are:

  • African historical dictionaries
  • An African biographical dictionary
  • Encyclopaedia of African history
  • The African Political Dictionary
  • Historical dictionary of South Africa

To find further dictionaries, directories or encyclopaedias relevant to this area do a Keyword search in the catalogue for name of the country and the term dictionaries (or encyclopaedias) e.g. kenya dictionaries, south africa dictionaries

Journals

Journal articles are a good source of current information on your topic. The library has a wide variety of print and online journals and newspapers. Check the catalogue for print and or electronic holdings .

To find out what journals we hold perform a Subject Search under:

Africa - Periodicals
or
Africa - History -- Periodicals

Some examples of key journals which may be useful to you are:

  • Africa : journal of the International African Institute
  • Africa Confidential
  • African Affairs
  • History in Africa
  • Journal of African Economies
  • Journal of African History
  • Journal of African Law
  • Journal of Contemporary African Studies
  • Journal of Modern African Studies
  • Journal of Religion in Africa
  • Research in African Literatures
  • Review of African Political Economy

The La Trobe African Research Institute has also compiled a list of African Studies Resources at La Trobe University: Periodicals and Annual Reports