Overview
Unusually rich and extensive research materials concerning the
fifty countries of sub-Saharan Africa, an area that includes the
Western Indian Ocean Islands but excludes the North African countries
of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia, are available
at the Library of Congress. The Library's collections of Africana
-- material from or relating to Africa -- are among the best in
the world. Although most Africa-related material is dispersed
in the Library's general book and periodical collections, impressive
works of Africana may also be found in the collections of manuscripts,
maps, microforms, music, newspapers, prints, photographs, and
films in the various special-format custodial divisions of the
Library. Every major field of study except technical agriculture
and clinical medicine is represented. Holdings in economics, history,
linguistics, and literature are especially strong.
The Library has a longstanding role in acquiring and providing
access to material about Africa, beginning with the Thomas Jefferson
collection purchased in 1815, which included several books on
Africa. The Library has developed one of the world's outstanding
collections by acquiring and retaining materials through copyright
deposit, by purchase, by the exchange of publications, and by
encouraging collectors or creators of Africana to donate their
treasures to an institution pledged to preserve them for future
generations.
The growth of the collections over the years has been phenomenal.
According to the Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress
of 1901, the Library's collection of materials about the
entire continent of Africa included about 1,830 volumes and 78
pamphlets. Measuring the largest single block of material in the
General Collections, that is, surveys, yearbooks, histories, and
general descriptive works under the DT classification, as an example,
in 1960 the Library held about 13,000 books and periodicals in
this category alone, in 1970 it held 21,000, and in 1997 it counted
50,000. The African Section's Pamphlet Collection currently numbers
more than 22,000 items, among them brochures, speeches, conference
papers, and other ephemera.

Beautiful and interesting African stamps have long attracted
the attention of philatelists. This
poster reproducing Botswanan postage stamps offers information
about traditional, popular toys. Although posters are housed
in the Prints and Photographs Division, this one is part
of a small, but growing "informational" poster collection
in the African Section.
(African Section Poster Collection
African and Middle
Eastern Division)
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The Library's field offices in Nairobi, Kenya, which obtains
materials from Eastern, Central, and Southern Africa and the Indian
Ocean islands and that in Cairo, Egypt, whose acquisition responsibilities
include Mauritania and Sudan, have been instrumental during the
last thirty years in developing one of the most extensive collections
of contemporary materials published in sub-Saharan Africa. These
field offices manage networks of bibliographic representatives
resident in each of twenty-eight countries in Central, Eastern,
and Southern Africa who make contact with any organization likely
to issue publications. Because of small press runs, on-the-spot
collecting of African publications has been crucial to the successful
assembling of unparalleled resources in contemporary African imprints.
A number of gifts of manuscripts and special collections are
highlighted in this guide. Organizations and individuals have
also deposited collections of archives, correspondence, photographs,
maps, posters, and memorabilia in the Library of Congress. Of
special note is the American Colonization Society collection,
a key research source for scholars of Liberian history and related
topics, which provides primary data on the society and its work
in founding that country. Particularly important are the American
Colonization Society manuscript records that are housed in the
Manuscript Division and the photographs from the collection, which
are located in the Prints and Photographs Division.
From ancient hand-drawn charts to the latest satellite surveys,
the Geography and Map Division houses more than 150,000 maps and
atlases of Africa offering diverse types of information, including
political and geographic divisions, environmental conditions,
and ethnological data. Besides the illustrations that may be found
in journals and books from the General Collections and in the
Rare Book and Special Collections Division, many images of Africa
may be found in the Prints and Photographs Division and the Motion
Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. The Library
offers the researcher the opportunity to hear the sounds of Africa
in the Performing Arts Reading Room or in the Folklife Reading
Room, housing the Archive of Folk Culture.
Preserving its collections is one of the Library's basic functions.
In addition to an active conservation program, the Library investigates
the best way to store the information contained in these materials,
whether by the acquisition of facsimile or reprint editions or
by transfer to microformat or electronic storage. The Library
of Congress seeks to offer researchers what is needed in Africana
today and to acquire and preserve what will be needed in the centuries
to come.
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