A new online resource will provide access to important academic publications focusing on Africa. The Carnegie Corporation-funded African Online Journal Archive is the first free-use scholarly content website to contain purely African material. The full-text repository will include journals containing important African research across a number of fields, including medicine, the social sciences and environment. Read the press release.
Materials archived on the site will provide the groundwork for further research and will help to preserve the intellectual heritage of the African continent.
The project will include the sourcing of African journal content, the negotiation of publisher agreements, digitization and indexing of the journal content and the creation of a user interface that will make the journal content easily accessible.
Two hundred journals from across English speaking Africa countries, including Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia and South Africa, have thus far been identified for possible inclusion.
Sabinet Gateway, a non-profit organization that promotes and supports library and information services in Africa, will manage the project.
Carnegie Corporation of New York supports libraries and access to global databases and networks in developing countries as levers of social change. In many of these countries access to knowledge and information is a critical factor in modernization, advancement and economic competitiveness. In the resource-scarce environment of many African countries, libraries are often given a low priority by governments and international funders alike.
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