Global Studies E-Resources & Library Guides at Columbia under COVID-19, Part 1

A roundup on Global Studies e-resources (digital collections and e-reference works) and library guides new to Columbia during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020-2021, Part 1: Africa, Middle East & Islam, and Russia, Eurasia & East Europe.

AFRICA

Recent events over the past year in the United States and Africa prompted Yuusuf Caruso,
the African Studies Librarian, to publish several new library guides and revise existing guides to enable research and teaching at Columbia, see especially the new guides on:
“Africa and Black Internationalism”
“History of Health & Medicine in Africa”
“Modern History & Political Identities in The Horn of Africa”
…and, the revised guides on:
“History of East Africa, c. 1000 CE to present”
“Maps and Power in Modern African History”.

This semester, in support of research on the history of slavery and the slave trade in the Atlantic world, Columbia acquired access to Slavery: Supporters and Abolitionists, 1675-1865,
part of the “British Online Archives” collection, which consists of digitized official reports on the African slave trade during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, with a primary focus on Jamaica and the West Indies, and parts of West Africa, and drawn from The Bodleian Library of Oxford University, The British Library, and other institutions. This online resource complements other digital collections on slavery and the slave trade already available to Columbia affiliates, such as:
“Slavery, Abolition, & Social Justice” (Adam Matthew)
“Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive” (Gale)

Frequently-updated, annotated links to open access resources on COVID-19 in Africa can be found in Columbia’s own “African Studies WWW-Virtual Library” and as part of two global COVID-19 web archiving projects hosted by the Internet Archive and maintained by the International Internet Preservation Consortium (“Novel Coronavirus”) and the Ivy Plus Libraries’ Confederation (“Global Social Responses”).

Reference e-books in African Studies from major publishers recently added to Columbia’s library catalog this past academic year include:

The Cambridge history of Black and Asian British writing. (2019)

Dictionary of Arabic loanwords in the languages of Central and East Africa. (2020)

Handbook of African philosophy of difference. (2020)

Historical dictionary of Eritrea. 3rd ed. (2019)

Historical dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon. 5th ed. (2019)

Historical dictionary of Mozambique. New ed. (2019)

The Oxford handbook of ancient Nubia. (2020)

The Oxford handbook of Kenyan politics. (2020)

The Oxford handbook of the Ethiopian economy. (2019)

The Oxford handbook of Zimbabwean politics. (2020)

The Palgrave handbook of African political economy. (2020)

The Palgrave handbook of African social ethics. (2020)

The Routledge handbook of African theology. (2020)

The Palgrave handbook of African women’s studies. (2020)

The Palgrave handbook of agricultural and rural development in Africa. (2020)

Routledge handbook of African media and communication studies. (2021)

The Routledge handbook of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency in Africa. (2021)

Routledge handbook of Pan-Africanism. (2020)

MIDDLE EAST & ISLAM

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Peter Magierski, the Middle East & Islamic Studies Librarian, has updated several times his guide on Middle East & Islamic Studies Online Resources. Late last spring, Columbia acquired access to the digital archive of Al-Ahram (1876-2014 CE), often considered Egypt’s most authoritative and influential newspaper.

Here also is a short list of reference e-books in Middle East and Islamic studies which were added to the catalog this past academic year:

Arabic media dictionary. (2019)

Conflict in the modern Middle East : an encyclopedia of civil war, revolutions, and regime change. (2020)

Marwān ibn Janāḥ (c.900-c.1050 CE) : on the nomenclature of medicinal drugs (Kitāb al-talkhīṣ). (2020)

The Oxford handbook of Turkish politics. (2020)

The Oxford handbook of Islamic archaeology. (2020)

The Oxford handbook of contemporary Middle-Eastern and North African history. (2015)

The Oxford handbook of Egyptology. (2015)

The Oxford handbook of politics in Muslim societies. (2020)

The Palgrave handbook of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. (2019)

The Palgrave handbook of Islam in Africa. (2020)

Routledge handbook on Arab media. (2021)