Dictionary of African Biography

The new Oxford University Press Dictionary of African Biography has been added to the Senate House Library collection - this 6 volume work edited by Emmanuel K. Akueampong and Henry Lousi Gates, Jr is housed on the 4th floor in the reference collection in the Periodicals Reading Room.

The Dictionary of African Biography is a major biographical dictionary covering the lives and legacies of notable African men and women from all eras and walks of life, teling the story of the African continent through the lives of its people. The dictionary is based on new historical research and perspectives and aims to correct the uneven coverage of previous attempts to collate African biographies - focusing unevenly on the colonial period, European adventurers, and Egyptian dynasties. As the most wide-reaching reference project on Africa to date, the Dictionary of African Biography intends to codify the explosion of new research, with entries written by contributing scholars from African studies departments the world over. The Dictionary contains nearly 2,200 entries, each with bibliography, ranging from 750 to 2,000 words, within six volumes.

Bloemfontein Bantu and Coloured People's Directory available online

Biographical sources are supremely suited to digistisation and availability in online, full text formats. It was pleaseing to recently discover that much of John Mancoe's classic, and very long out of print, biographical directory, First edition of the Bloemfontein Bantu and Coloured People's Directory. Bloemfontein : A.C. White, 1934., is now available online at:


http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/library-resources/online%20books/bloemfonteindirectory/toc.htm

The directory lists members of the Native Advisory Board and Native Education Advisory Board, employees of the Government Civil Service, South African Railways and Harbours, General Post Office and South African Police, as well as the National and Mental Hospitals. There is information on churches and schools, Bantu commercial travellers, Bantu and Coloured boxers, musical combinations, motor mechanics and drivers, chefs and waiters, and "Organised Public Bodies and Societies" including the African National Congress, Industrial and Commercial Workers, Union of Africa (I.C.U.), Non-European Conference, Orange Free State Afiican Teachers' Association, (O.F.S.A.T.A.), Joint-Council of Europeans and Bantu, Young Men's Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.), Independent Order of True Templars, (I.O.T.T.), Magasa Regiment, Barolong Land Fund ft Co, African Diugaka Association (A.D.A.), Bantu Masons' Association, Bantu Traders' Association, Bantu Taxi-Owners' Association and Barolong Burial Society.
 
The Cambridge History of Africa has described this Directory, along with publications such as Macmillan's Red Book of West Africa, 1920, M J Sampson's Gold Coast Men of Affairs, 1937, and Mweli Skota's African Yearly Register, c.1931, as an expression of the emergence of a new African middle class, and a reflection of the 'self-image' of this new class.

Research Training at Commonwealth Studies Library

This year we're in the initial planning stages of a planned series of short (no more than two hours) hands-on workshops aimed at small groups of Masters and Postgraduate Research students, looking at the use of various resources for ‘Commonwealth studies’ in both electronic and print format. Suggestions so far include
• the use of census material
• colonial blue books and annual reports from the colonies
• the Confidential Print
• maps and geographical sources
• and finding biographical information.

We would welcome your feedback as to whether you think such an idea would be of use to you or your students, whether the length is appropriate, what time of day may best suit students and what resources or topics may meet their needs.

We would also welcome any general comments on information training needs and how we could contribute to meet these needs; as well as any other general comments and feedback.

Please respond by email to david.clover@sas.ac.uk

We are also happy to arrange tours for groups of students, if you are interested, please do get in touch.