The University Library provides access to a number of digital collections that can be used in African American Studies research. Some of these collections have been digitized by departmental libraries or archives, while others have been purchased and are accessible only with a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign NetID.
Accessible to the public.
Digital Collections at the University Library
- Amos Kennedy Collection
- The Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., Collection in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign contains artists’ books, postcards, and posters. Kennedy is a letterpress printer, papermaker, book artist, and teacher who currently lives and works in York, Alabama. He was the first artist in residence at The Coleman Center for Arts and Culture, an organization founded in 1985 to further the arts in York. Through his strong graphics and bold typography, Kennedy addresses passionately issues of race, freedom, and equality, often incorporating proverbs and tales of the Kuba and Yoruba people of Africa, as well as the work of African-American poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar.
- Black Student Association Publications (Digital Surrogates)
- Black Student Association Publications (Digital Surrogates), 1967-1974, contains digitized issues of Drums (1967-1969), The Black Rap (1969-1971), Yombo (1971-1973) and the Irepodun yearbook (1972-1973) containing feature articles, editorials, poetry, book reviews, cartoons, photographs, announcements, and advertisements about the University, Champaign-Urbana, police, Vietnam, racism, Black students, and white society.
- Black Students for Revolution Records (Born Digital Records)
- Born Digital Records and Audiovisual Material from the Black Students for Revolution Records contains photographs, videos, flyers, newspaper articles, social media records, and web clippings related to BSFR operations, protests, walkouts, and educational events.
- Maps of Africa to 1900
- Contains images of maps listed in the bibliography “Maps of Africa to 1900: A Checklist of Maps in Atlases and Geographical Journals in the Collections of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign” (Bassett & Scheven, Urbana: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 2000).
Digital Collections Purchased by the University Library
The library has purchased a number of digital collections. These collections contain digital surrogates for a variety of materials (print, manuscript, audiovisual, etc.) that may be used as primary sources for historical research related to African American Studies.
For Digital Collections related to African American Studies, see our Digital Collections Library Guide.