Uncovering UCLA Library Special Collections Information Resources for Researchers: The Pre-Independence Socio-political Landscape in Zanzibar from the Michael Lofchie Collection

Abstract

After more than four decades of obscurity, a collection of historical African newspapers and other materials is now being made widely accessible to researchers due to the efforts of Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Postdoctoral Fellow Janet Kaaya and the Center for Primary Research and Training in the Charles E. Young Research Library, Department of Special Collections, at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). The Michael Lofchie Collection contains primarily pre-independence newspapers and other materials from Zanzibar, a Tanzanian island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of East Africa. The collection holds about 120 volumes, covering 22 newspaper titles in various languages, including English, Swahili, Gujarati, and Arabic. In addition, the collection includes bulletins, journals, monographs, manuscripts, booklets, information sheets and minutes of meetings. The collection's depth and breadth reflect the socio-cultural, economic and political environments that prevailed in Zanzibar over the timespan of the collection, from 1909 to 1965.