Locating Books about Africa

Books at Alden Library

To find books, journal holdings, music, videos or other materials on Africa and African topics search by subject on ALICE. Find the most appropriate heading for your topic by looking up the subject in the Library of Congress Subject Headings volumes available at the desk or call up a subject heading on ALICE itself. Suggested starting words for consulting the volumes include:

• Africa ... or African ... (e.g. African music)
• Music, African (try both combinations: either or both may apply)
• Names of African countries

Another useful tool is the African Studies Thesaurus, Subject Headings for Library Users (Z695.1.A37 O85 1992) located in the CIC African Reference stacks.

Searching ALICE by subject will guide you to general areas where books on your topic may be grouped, such as DT775 (South Africa). If your interests are more specific you may wish to try the Keyword search option on ALICE. Perhaps you are interested in the question of U.S. neutrality in the South African (Boer) war. Searching words such as 'boer'; 'orange' (for Orange Free State); or 'neutrality'; and then combining these searches might provide some specific titles.

You may also browse the stacks under the same general call number ranges of the books cited in ALICE. Many books in Alden Library about Africa are found on the sixth floor in the DT section. However, other topics may be found in other classes, e.g. African costumes may be found in the "GV" classification, bibliographies in the "Z3500 - Z3999" areas of the stacks or CIC Reference stacks. When browsing the shelves for other sources, check the book's footnotes and bibliography to locate other relevant books and journals.

Materials relating to or published in Botswana, as well as for Swaziland, may be located in the Republic of Botswana and the Kingdom of Swaziland Depositories at the Center for International Collections on the First floor of Alden Library.

OhioLINK and Interlibrary Loan

Many of the Libraries in Ohio are participants in a program called OhioLINK which allows the library catalogs of state universities, colleges and some public libraries accessible through ALICE, books are delivered quickly by courier. Search the OhioLINK Central Catalog from ALICE or the OhioLINK Web pages. (Note: you may need to access from an OhioLINK member's site for full functionality.) The records of the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago (CRL), which contains much Africa-related material, are also in the OhioLINK Central Catalog (for borrowing, consult with the InterLibrary Loan Department).

If the item is not available from OhioLINK, the Interlibrary Loan Department on the fourth floor of Alden Library may be able to obtain additional African Studies resources from other libraries. Before obtaining materials through Interlibrary Loan it may be helpful to determine which library has the material by searching the Worldcat database which is accessible from InfoTree. Complete the interlibrary loan request form found on the Interlibrary Loan web page.