Library & Research Facilities
In addition to its unparalleled concentration of Africanist scholarship, the Centre of African Studies also benefits from the substantial library resources of the University of London and its constituent colleges, and from proximity to the British Library and to other resources in London, such as the Public Records Office.
The library of the School of Oriental and African Studies has an African Studies Section headed by a specialist member of staff, Mrs Barbara Turfan. Currently the African Studies Section comprises some 50,000 volumes and covers the whole continent in a variety of European and African languages; other materials relating to Africa are located in their own Sections, notably Archives, Art and Archaeology, Law, Maps/Atlases and Serials. Additionally, the library has a substantial collection of manuscripts, including some in African languages, and houses a number of missionary archives and microform collections of historical source materials. Of particular interest is the Hardyman Madagascar Collection, donated to the Library in 1991 by Mr and Mrs J T Hardyman. The specialist Africa Reading Room contains reference books on Africa and African languages (bibliographies, historical dictionaries, encyclopaedias and published catalogues of other library collections). Bibliographies range from current works covering the whole continent to publications on specific topics and countries. Through the Cooperative Africana Microform Project (CAMP), the African Studies Section is able to borrow or purchase microfilm of rare or out-of-print serials and some other publications.
The SOAS library contains the most extensive general collection of African books, however some specialist interests in law, education, politics, medicine etc. may be catered for more extensively in the libraries of other colleges, schools and institutions of the University of London. The London School of Economics houses the most substantial collection of government papers; the Institute of Commonwealth Studies has an extensive reference library; while the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies, the Institute of Education, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine collect extensively in their specialist fields.
