Electronic Index Databases

Electronic index databases can be general multidisciplinary or specialized covering one subject area or region such as Africa and provides access to articles in journals, newspapers, book chapters and other resources. They are useful for researching current issues and research information not yet written in books. Selected databases are available in the African Studies section of the Libraries' InfoTree system.

General

Academic Search Complete

A multi-disciplinary database covering a wide range of fields and disciplines, including some African studies articles. Provides full text articles from popular and peer reviewed journals.

JSTOR African Studies Journals

Peer reviewed full text journal archive, including titles such as ASA Review of Books, Review of African Political Economy and Journal of African History.

Lexis Nexis Academic

A full text database covering news, business, legal research, medicine including reports, newspapers, conference proceedings, extremely useful in researching current events.

PAIS International 1972-

Social science index database, indexes journals, books, government documents, grey literature and conference reports. Subjects covered include legislation, public policy, economics, demography, international relations. There is also a PAIS Archive that covers the years 1915 through 1976.

Web of Science 1980-

Also known as ISI Web of Knowledge; includes Science, Social Science, and Arts and Humanities Citation indexes, abstracts and cited references.

Specialized

AccessUN

Citations for current and retrospective (1991 to the present) United Nations documents and publications, including articles from UN periodicals and bilateral and multilateral treaties in the UN Treaty Series.

AccessUNDP

An index to a collection of United Nations Development Program Project Reports issued and held by UN headquarters between the years 1972-1998. The index provides access to evaluative, technical and terminal reports submitted to the UN by numerous participating and executing agencies.

Aequatoria Book Bank Online (ABBOL)

An electronic historical library of scholarly publications on sub-Saharan Africa published before 1960. The focus is on the humanities and social sciences as well as other relevant disciplines such as agricultural and veterinary sciences, human geography and environmental sciences.

AfricaBib.Org.

A combination of databases with access to periodical and other materials on Africa. Major databases included are Africana periodical literature, African Women’s Database – indexes articles in edited books, journal articles, conference papers, references to theses. Citations only.

African Census Analysis Project (ACAP)

Current collection consists of more than 40 censuses from over 20 African countries.

Africana Conference Paper Index

The Africana Conference Paper Index is an index to the individual papers in western European languages of conference proceedings held by Northwestern University’s Melvill J. Herskovits Library of African Studies.

GWS Africa Project

A survey of African feminist scholarship made up of review essays, a comprehensive overview of women and gender studies published in Africa and bibliographies, Coverage includes feminist theory, women’s movements in Africa, women’s health, biographies, land issues, history, social transformation and politics. Bibliographies are mostly citations with links to a few full-text articles.

African Journals Online (AJOL)

A database of journals published in Africa, offers table of contents and abstracts, book reviews and some full text articles. Journal lists can be browsed by country and subject.

African Newspapers Union List (AFRINUL)

A centralized electronic database of holdings information for newspapers in various formats and languages published in sub-Saharan Africa. AFRINUL currently contains holdings information for collections in North America.

Africa – Wide: NiPAD

Contains 40 databases including the South African Studies and African Studies databases. Subjects covered includes politics, history, economics, business and mining. Also included are theses, dissertations, journals, current research, popular magazines, reviews, monographs, pamphlets. Mainly citations with a few full-text articles.

eHRAF Collection of Ethnography

A cross-cultural database that contains information on all aspects of cultural and social life organized into cultures and ethnic groups. Includes information on cultural values and behaviors of different ethnic groups, cultural profiles and a list of the sources indexed.

Electronic Journal of Africana Bibliograpy: (University of Iowa)

An online listing of bibliographies covering all aspects of Africa and includes a large list of journals published in Africa.

The Kenya Indexing Project

An online index of articles published in Nairobi newspapers. The focus of the articles indexed includes culture, law and governance and reproductive health. Provides citations only, hard copies of articles indexed could be ordered from the project.

Population Index on the Web

A primary reference tool to the world's population literature which includes an annotated bibliography of recently published books, journal articles, working papers, and other materials on population topics.

Quarterly Index of African Periodical Literature

Indexes more than 300 periodical titles acquired by the Library of Congress (Nairobi). Includes abstracts and book reviews. Covers Eastern, Southern and Western Africa.

UNBISNET

United Nations bibliographic information system, serves as the primary index to United Nations publications and documentation published since 1979, or earlier for selected major documents, by the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library and the Library of the UN Office at Geneva.

United Nations Official Document System (ODS)

Contains a large number of UN documents relating to Africa, covering all types of official UN documentation originating from UN offices all over the world, including selective documents of its regional commissions. Coverage starts from 1993.