The reach of the African Studies
Center at Penn is global. The
web-site contains links to country-specific
pages for every country on the
continent, provides access to
information generated by African
institutions, and offers a wide
variety of K-12 teaching resources.
Among its 11,000 files (in some
50 major directories) are articles
and papers, bibliographies,
current events, exhibitions
and conferences, job opportunities,
mutimedia archives, and information
about grants and fellowships.
The ASC website has been described
by the Library of Congress as
the "most comprehensive
on-line source for information
about Africa" and by the
National Endowment for the Humanities
as "one of the best sites
on the Internet for education
in the humanities." Average
monthly statistics for 2001
reveal 3,000,000 hits from over
200,000 computer terminals worldwide.
Information Seminars
Members of the media, business
executives, educators, librarians,
and scholars regularly attend
African Studies Center information
seminars. These sessions have
addressed topics such as the
use of the Internet in teaching
and learning about Africa, the
historical context of political
and economic change in different
regions of the continent, and
readjustment strategies for
newly arrived African immigrants,
many of them refugees from conflict
in their home countries.
University Museum
One of the largest collections
of African art and material
culture in the United States
is located in the University
Museum. The Museum has collected
over 10,000 African objects
for over a century, making its
first major purchases during
the 1890s. The Archives at the
Museum contain prints, maps,
and textual materials relating
to sub-Saharan Africa. More
recently, the Museum has collaborated
with the National Museum of
Kenya to conduct extensive research
on medicinal plant materials
from East Africa.
Library Resources
The University of Pennsylvania
Library system has some 70,000
books and journals pertaining
to Africa, with noted collections
in anthropology, archeology,
art, Egyptology, folklore, history,
Islamic studies, and music.
The material is housed principally
in the Van Pelt Library, the
University Museum Library, and
the Fine Arts Library. The University
Museum owns the extensive Kintner
Collection of ethnographic films,
and the Biddle Law Library includes
an extensive collection of African
civil law. The Universityâs
Population Resource Center has
the largest archive of African
census data in the U.S. along
with its outstanding demography
collection. The Lippincott Libraryâs
research collection is renowned
for its strengths in the fields
of international trade and finance,
emerging markets, and business
development. Pennâs library
is a depository for UN, US,
EU, and OECD documents, and
is a member of the Cooperative
Africana Microfilming Project
administered by the Center for
Research Libraries.
