Reference Resources
This image identifies those resources where remote access is limited to University of Washington students, faculty, and staff.
These resources provide background information that can help you define unfamiliar terms, clarify issues, locate quick biographical information, verify dates and events, and locate statistical data.
- Afrikan alphabets
- Afrikan alphabets have a long history, fantastic variety, and some continue to be in current use today. They are comparatively little known due largely to their suppression by colonial powers.
- Africa guide
- Country, Medical, Political, and Travel information
- Africa maps
- Maps of Africa
- Africa south of the Sahara
- An explicit one-volume guide to all sub-Saharan African countries, providing invaluable economic, historic, and directory data. Also available through
Europa world
- African Folklore: an encyclopedia
- This resource covers the variety of forms of folklore across all of Africa in over 300 entries, ranging from 500 to 5,000 words. The entries are organized alphabetically by topic, including large sub-groupings that treat categories such as women's folklore, theater, and musical expression.
- African studies companion
- Provides over 1,900, for the most part extensively annotated entries. The Companion
covers both print and online resources on African studies, and includes an annotated directory of over 200 African studies periodicals.
- Background notes
- Country reports compiled by the U.S. Dept. of State.
- Bibliographies/resource lists
Britannica online
- Web version of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopędia Britannica Online includes the complete encyclopedia, as well as Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, Britannica Student Encyclopedia and the Britannica Book of the Year.
- Bureau of African affairs
- United States Dept. of State, advises the Secretary and guides the operation of the U.S. diplomatic establishment in the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. Former Assistant Administrator for Africa of the U.S. Agency for International Development
- Electronic journal of Africana bibliography
- A refereed online journal of bibliographies created by the late John Howell, University of Iowa Libraries. Coverage includes any aspect of African cultural, economic, educational, and political life.
- Electronic texts
- Various documents and texts available in digital format.
- Embassies around the world
- Embassy World provides a list of contact resources for all of the world's diplomatic offices.
- Encyclopedia of Africa south of the Sahara
- The Encyclopedia provides current information in over 1,000 articles on the sub-Saharan region. The articles describe such topics as the intricate ties of family and kinship, the complex matrix of government, politics, and law, and the beauties of African arts, cultures, and languages.
- The encyclopedia of African and African-American religions
- Covers African and African-American religion in sub-Saharan Africa, North America, South America, and the Caribbean, and provides vital insights into its growing worldwide influence in Europe, Asia and the South Pacific. Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Encyclopedia of African history and culture
- Provides 1,100 entries that examine well-established topics in African history, and also include social, economic, linguistic, anthropological, and political subjects that are being re-evaluated or newly opened for historical analysis by recent research and publication.
- Encyclopedia of African literature
- Over 600 entries covering all the key historical and cultural issues in the study of African literature, including criticism and theory, development as a field of scholarship, and studies both of established and lesser-known writers. Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Foreign-Born Population-Profile
- Presents data on a wide range of geographic, demographic, social, economic, and housing characteristics for the foreign-born population of the United States. Data for the native population are included for comparison.
Gale Virtual reference library
- Arts, Biography, Business, Education, Environment, History, Law, Literature, Medicine, Multicultural Studies, Nation and World, Religion, Science, Social Science, Technology in ebook format.
Global development finance
- GDF Online, provides current and time series debt and other financial data by country. GDF is for more specialized research.
- Key events in African history
- This reference guide to African history provides substantive entries on 36 events that shaped the history of the continent from the prehistoric past to the dawn of the 21st century. Includes bibliographical references and index
Reference guide to Africa: a bibliography of sources
- Electronic access to African studies research mainly in the humanities and social sciences. The introductory sections cover African studies indexes, bibliographies, handbooks, guides and directories as well as electronic sources and Internet web sites. The continuing chapters deal with specific types of materials such as statistics, current events, biography, primary sources, and government publications. The main body of the work is an annotated overview of sources for seventeen disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, and agriculture and ecology. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Also available in print Reference guide to Africa.
- Statistics [InfoNation.com]
- Statistics and indicators are provided by the United Nations Statistics Division from the World Statistics Pocketbook, Statistical Yearbook and Demographic Yearbook 1995, except languages.
- Internet living Swahili dictionary
- The Internet Living Swahili Dictionary is a collaborative work by people all over the world.
- Swahili and other African languages from Yourdictionary.com
- yourDictionary.com is a language products and services company that maintains the most comprehensive and authoritative language portal on the web with more than 2500 dictionaries and grammars in over 300 languages, games that build language skills, and a forum (The Agora) for discussing language issues with the logophile community.
World development indicators
- WDI Online, provides general current and time series statistical data for countries.