2020 Newsletter

Second funding phase of the Specialised Information Service (FID) African Studies

The second funding phase of the DFG-funded FID African Studies began in January 2020. The acquisition of literature from the African continent and the African diaspora remains a central task of the specialised information service based at the Goethe University Library in Frankfurt. For the first time, over 1,000 e-books published in Africa will be licenced.

The existing ilissAfrica portal will be modernised both technically and with regard to its appearance. It will also be re-named the African Studies Library. In the backend, a switch to an index-based search and the integration of numerous German and European African Studies library holdings will make the search more comprehensive and convenient. Open access documents from the most relevant repositories worldwide, including over 100 African repositories, will also be integrated into the search.

The acquisition trips to South Africa and Côte d'Ivoire planned for 2020 had to be postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For the African Studies Toolbox, which provides a collection of useful resources for researchers on the website of the Association for African Studies in Germany (VAD), we created a new series on online resources for African studies. This includes practical advice and suggestions for digital university teaching and research: tips on tools and techniques as well as audio and video materials, open access collections on African studies and Africa-related digital humanities projects.

For the 60th anniversary of the Year of African Independence, the FID African Studies created country-specific photo collages from its holdings to promote our library collections. Some of them can also be seen on this newsletter (e.g. Cameroon and the Republic of Congo).

Network for sustainable research structures for holdings from colonial contexts

In November 2020, stakeholders from around 30 cultural and academic institutions and working groups launched a cooperation for the development of sustainable research structures for the handling of collections and holdings from colonial contexts at a German Research Foundation (DFG) roundtable organised by the FID African Studies and other cooperation partners. The most important challenges discussed across disciplinary and institutional boundaries were how to avoid insular solutions, improve sustainability and ensure respectful handling of sensitive data while maintaining transparency.

This newsletter also appeared in German on pages 66-67 of the Annual Report 2020 (Jahresbericht 2020) of the Centre for Interdisciplinary African Studies (ZIAF) of the Goethe University Frankfurt.