About This Database

Africana Periodical Literature Bibliographic Database

This work was originally begun in September of 1974 as an effort to index all the issues of each periodical/journal title and place them all in one source.

This English language database indexes over 33,000 articles from over 280 English language and multi-lingual journals and periodicals that specialize in African Studies or consistently cover the African continent. The titles were originally chosen from the library at California State University-Chico and that number were later expanded by using materials from Northwestern University and other major university libraries as well as the Library of Congress.

Each title is indexed from its first day of publication to the present or, either its date of ceasing or a date where the journal or periodical no longer covered Africa on a regular basis. In only in a few cases were titles dropped due to the difficulty in obtaining copies or irregularities in the journal's publishing schedule.

Of the over 280 journals and periodicals indexed, more than half have ceased being published. Until the mid-1960's few Africana journals were indexed in major indexing tools. This work hopes to fill the gap by indexing Africana materials from the mid-nineteenth century to today all in one index.

A title list of all journals and periodicals indexed, including the years the journals or periodicals were published and indexed is included by a link from the front page of this database.

The titles indexed in this database represent Africana materials published in from over 22 nations within North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.