American University and Research Library Holdings in African Literature

Abstract

American scholars doing research in African literature sometimes have trouble locating the books they need. It is easy enough to get one's hands on African literary works published in England or America, but how does one get hold of material published in Africa -- e.g., Onitsha market chapbooks, early Lovedale or Morija press publications, or works in vernacular languages published by literature bureaus and small mission presses? Fortunately, for the older titles once can search through several published library catalogs -- Library of Congress (1942-1952), UCLA (1963), Berkeley (1963), the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library (1962), the African collection in the Moorland Foundation at Howard University (1958), Northwestern University's African collection (1962) -- and for the newer titles one can consult the National Union Catalog or the Joint Acquisitions List of Africana issued since 1961 by the Northwestern University Library. However, because these reference works do not list the older titles which libraries have acquired in recent years, one can never be certain that a particular African literary work is unavailable in the United States.