The collection is maintained by the Africana Library.
The Africana collections at the University of Illinois are among the finest in the world. The University Library has made a serious commitment to acquire Africa related materials since 1969. The collection covers all African countries and includes materials in more than 150 African languages. Priority countries for collecting include: Burkina Faso, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Priority languages are: Amharic, Arabic, Bambara, Hausa, Lingala, Swahili, Wolof, and Zulu. The collections are interdisciplinary, in all formats, and concentrated mainly in the humanities, social sciences, and agriculture. The Library has an extraordinary collection of primary source materials for Africana. We have identified approximately 100 printed sources and 85 microform collections (over 10,000 pieces) covering all areas of Africa. The collection also includes 120,000 pages of Arabic manuscripts and thousands of government documents.
Africana materials in European and African languages at the University of Illinois Libraries include more than 180,000 volumes (including 15,000 in Arabic, and 3,000 in Bamana, Hausa, Lingala, Swahili and Zulu), 2,800 journals, 46,000 maps, 10,000 microforms, 37 newspapers, and several CD-ROMs. Due to the decentralized nature of the library system, the collection is distributed by subject and format throughout the system, however the greatest part is in the Library’s general book stacks. Arabic materials are kept in the Asian Library.
Version Date: April, 2005