Polk Library Resources African Literature

Finding Books

Polk Library Catalog -- Search here to find out what books, videos, journals, etc. Polk Library owns.

Universal Borrowing -- Use Universal Borrowing to borrow books from other UW campuses. Items take 2-3 days to arrive at Polk.
**See our Universal Borrowing Tips for details on how to place a request.

BadgerCat -- Use BadgerCat to search hundreds of libraries across Wisconsin, the country, and the world.
** See the BadgerCat help sheet for details on how to place a request for something you've found here.

Selected Reference Books (1st Floor South - cannot be checked out)

African Literature Reference Sources

• Postcolonial African Writers - Ref. PL 8010 .P585 1998
• Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African Writers - Ref. PR 9205 .A52 T89 1996
• African Literature and Its Times - Ref. PL 8010 .M65 2000
• African Writers - Ref. PL 8010 .A453 1996
• Literature of Developing Nations for Students - Ref. PN 3326 .L58 2000
• Masterplots II: World Fiction Series - Ref. PN 3326 .M28 1987
• The Companion to African Literature - Ref. PR 9340 .C65 2000

General Literature Reference Sources

• Contemporary Literary Criticism - Ref. PN 771 .C59
• Twentieth Century Literary Criticism - Ref. PN 771 .T8
• Book Review Digest - Ref. Z1219 .C9

Reference Sources About Africa

• Europa World Year Book - Ref. JN 1 .E852 2006
• Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations - Ref. G 63 .W67 2003
• Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience - Ref. DT 14 .A37435 2005
• Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa - Ref. DS 43 .E53 2004

Finding Journal Articles

MLA Bibliography - Huge literary database; contains a mix of journal articles and book chapters. Check "Find It" for articles, check the catalog for availability of the books in your results list.

Project Muse and JSTOR - Two full-text, scholarly article databases. Project Muse has more current issues of journals, while JSTOR covers older issues.

Lexis Nexis Academic Universe - Good source for world news.

To limit to African news sources in Lexis Nexis : 1) click on the "Sources" tab on the top; 2) in the "All Countries" menu, select "Africa"; 3) click the "News" folder towards the bottom of the screen; 4) click the boxes next to "Middle East/Africa Archive News", "Middle East/Africa News Information Sources", and "Middle East/Africa News, Current"; 5) click on the red "OK-Continue" button on the right side of the screen. On the next screen, type in your search terms - your results will be limited to African news sources.

Contemporary Authors - Online source for biographical information about authors.

Ethnic Newswatch - Research and news articles with an ethnic focus; includes African and African American sources.

***Also try the other search tools listed under English (for literary research), International Studies (for political/regional studies), or Anthropology (for cultural studies).

Tracking Down the Text of an Article

List of Print and Online Journals - Check here to see if Polk Library has the journal you need either in print or online formats.

Interlibrary Loan - Go here to request articles and books not owned by Polk Library.

Other Assorted Stuff

Logging in to Library Databases from Off-Campus

Online Info on How to Cite Things in MLA format

Ask A Librarian - Call, email or chat online with a librarian!

Questions? Email Renee Buker, reference librarian, at bukerr@uwosh.edu
Page updated 11/07
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