Tag Archives: library special collections
Grants for research travel to UF special collections
Travel grants of up to $2,500 are available to support research in the Special and Area Studies Collections Department (see Travel Grants button, bottom left of page) of the George A. Smathers Libraries at University of Florida. Proposals are due Friday, June 1, 2018, with award notifications the week of July 1, 2018. Research must […]
East African history resources from British Library
Exciting news of British cartographic materials for historical research available online. The British Library has catalogued, conserved and digitised over 550 military intelligence maps and associated documents from the War Office Archive relating to the former British East Africa (modern-day Kenya, Uganda and adjacent parts of Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, DR Congo, South Sudan, Ethiopia and […]
Librarians of Timbuktu
Joshua Hammer’s The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts (2016 Simon & Schuster) is reviewed by Tom Glenn in the Washington Independent Review of Books: The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu provides irrefutable evidence that culture and learning in Africa were far more advanced than in Europe by the 16th century when Timbuktu flourished as […]
African Studies librarian job posted
From Michigan State University: “Reporting to the Head of Area Studies Collections, this librarian has responsibility for collection development (in cooperation with others) for materials from and about the continent of Africa, emphasizing Africa south of the Sahara. Duties include selection of materials, specialized reference and library instruction, faculty liaison, collection management, promoting the collection, […]
Heal Uganda’s oldest Library
Update: The Indiegogo campaign to “Heal Uganda’s oldest Library” raised $1,665 USD by 37 backers in 2 months and closed in December 2015. A second campaign is active now, with just over 3 weeks left at this point, again via Indiegogo to preserve the rare and unique book collections at the Uganda Society library. Organizers plan to install an air conditioner, […]
George Fortune manuscripts open for research
I’m delighted to announce that the George Fortune Papers, 1869-2006 (2013 accretion with significant updates to the original finding aid) now are open for research. A small selection of items from the collection are available online. This has been a fascinating collection to work with and has the potential to support a variety of research projects. I’m personally charmed by the […]
Smithsonian museum libraries exhibit African artists’ books
Artists’ Books and Africa: Unique Visions by Janet Stanley Since artists’ books are not normally associated with African art, our goal in this exhibition is to introduce the genre and survey its “African” manifestations. The featured books are from the Smithsonian Libraries’ Warren M. Robbins Library at the National Museum of African Art and the […]
Arabic script paleography symposium
The Islamic Manuscript Association, in collaboration with the Department of Classics at King’s College London and the Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation, is pleased to announce a symposium on the palaeography of Arabic-script languages at King’s College London’s Great Hall on the Strand, London, on Monday, 24 August. Compared with the well-established Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Coptic palaeographic […]
Obituary for John O. Hunwick
The Program of African Studies at Northwestern University shared the sad news of John Hunwick‘s death this week. He may be best known for his discovery of 3,000 privately held manuscripts in Timbuktu in 1999. Northwestern University Professor Emeritus John Owen Hunwick…discovered a treasure trove of historic Arab literature stored in trunks in Timbuktu, Mali, died April 1 […]
Cataloging the Timbuktu Libraries
Crowd funding site T160k hosts a campaign to document 400,000 items in the Timbuktu (Mali) Libraries in exile. They helped to rescue and preserve these via Indiegogo and now are working to take their efforts to the next level: In 2012, under threat from fundamentalist rebels, a team of archivists, librarians, and couriers evacuated an irreplaceable trove of manuscripts […]
African Studies library 