Africa Commons A-Z Database Descriptions and URLs
This article provides ready-to-use, concise descriptions for Africa Commons and its modules—ideal for adding to your library’s A-Z database lists, discovery tools, subject guides, or promotional materials.
Africa Commons (main platform)
A collaborative digital platform providing access to endangered cultural heritage materials from Africa. Addresses underrepresentation of African knowledge in academic libraries (currently only 4% of digital collections are African) through preservation and dissemination efforts. Includes content from multiple collections covering historical magazines, newspapers, films, and archival documents.
Important Tip
In your A-Z lists, Learning Management Systems, research guides, and other locations where users discover resources, It’s important to list both the platform (the Commons) and the individual module.
For example, on the Policy Commons platform, the Public Health and Social Care module offers specialized content that focuses on healthcare policy, social services, and community health initiatives. If you list only Policy Commons, users searching for public health-specific resources may miss the Public Health and Social Care collection. By featuring both the platform and the collection (the module), you increase discoverability of subject-specific content.
African History and Culture
A comprehensive online index providing centralized access to hundreds of thousands of digital cultural artifacts from more than thousands of select collections worldwide. Includes books, magazines, comics, photographs, maps, letters, diaries, and other primary source materials spanning centuries of African history. Functions as a unified search platform for materials scattered across websites with inconsistent interfaces and taxonomies. Preserves at-risk content through backup copies (with permission) to ensure long-term availability.
West African Magazines
An online collection of over 50,000 pages of rare, historically significant magazines from West Africa, digitized for the first time. Includes Nigeria Magazine, Black Orpheus (first African literary periodical), Farafina, African Film, and Okyeame, spanning from the 1930s to present. Documents pre-independence and post-independence literary heritage of Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Senegal, and other countries. Valuable for research in African studies, literature, history, political science, culture, gender, and media studies.
Black South African Magazines
An online collection of 50,000+ pages of extremely rare magazines written by and for Black African audiences from 1937 to 1973. Features complete runs of historically significant publications like DRUM (once Africa's most widely read magazine) and early women's magazines written for Black African women. Contains investigative journalism, photography, fiction, and historical documentation of major events including the Defiance Campaign and profiles of figures like Winnie Mandela and Steve Biko. Materials exist in only a few physical locations and have never before been digitized.
East African Magazines, Newspapers, and Films
An online collection featuring the Hilary Ng'weno Archive with over 100,000 pages of groundbreaking newspapers and magazines plus documentaries from Kenya's most influentialjournalist. Includes complete runs of The Weekly Review (1975-1999), The Nairobi Times (1977-1983), and Rainbow (1978-1995), along with the Kenyan Heritage Series documentaries. Digitized through African-based partnerships with Moi University in Kenya, offers important primary sources for journalism, history, politics, and African studies research.
Southern African Films and Documentaries
A cinematic digital archive containing online access to hundreds of films documenting the history and culture of Southern Africa throughout the twentieth century. Includes propaganda films, unedited interviews with figures like Winnie Mandela and Oliver Tambo, newsreels (including African Mirror), raw footage of events like the Sharpeville Massacre, and feature films such as Zonk! (1950). Materials are transcribed and keyword searchable, with contextual essays providing background for teaching and research in African studies, film studies, history, and related disciplines.
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