OLIVER “TUKU” MTUKUDZI, 1952-2019 Photo: Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi performing in 2018. Credit: Mário Pires. From African Arguments (UK). Columbia University’s WWW-Virtual Library on “Tuku” African Arguments (UK): “Rest in power: Oliver Mtukudzi…,” by Rumbidzai Dube, January 25, 2019. Afropop Worldwide (USA): “Remembering Oliver Mtukudzi,” by Banning Eyre. January 24, 2019 ; “Oliver Mtukudzi dies at […]
100th Anniversary of Birth of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela & Barack Obama’s 2018 Mandela Lecture
For 20 years, one popular feature of Columbia University Libraries’ virtual library for “African Studies Internet Resources” has been and continues to be a list of web links to reliable information about famous people of African descent, past and present. This month marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the much celebrated South African, […]
Columbia Acquires “Annual Departmental Reports Relating to Nigeria and the British Cameroons, 1887-1962”
Columbia University Libraries’ has just acquired a searchable online version of the British Colonial Office’s “Annual Departmental Reports Relating to Nigeria and the British Cameroons, 1887-1962.” As part of their series “British Online Archives”, Microform Academic Publishers is making available a digitized version of the microfilmed administrative records on colonial Nigeria and Cameroon. The collection […]
African Studies WWW-Virtual Library Celebrates its 20th Anniversary
Columbia University sponsors the most detailed, comprehensive guide on “African Studies Internet Resources” available anywhere. Frequently updated, this resource is celebrating its 20th anniversary during the academic year 2017-2018 as the official WWW-Virtual Library for African Studies. Open access electronic resources from Africa are organized by region and country. All materials are arranged to encourage […]
South & Southeast Asia Columbia Libraries Newsletter Launched
The first issue of a South & Southeast Asia, Columbia University Libraries Newsletter has been launched. Those interested in subscribing to future newsletter mailings, and in viewing archived newsletters, can visit the following link. The newsletter will provide periodic updates of South/Southeast Asia library acquisitions and developments at Columbia University Libraries. […]
Colonial Law in Africa — New Online Primary Resource at Columbia
Columbia University Libraries has acquired a new online primary resource: Colonial Law in Africa: African Government Gazettes, 1808-1919 and 1920-1945 An extensive collection of “digitized” legal records on British colonial African territories, covering the 19th and 20th centuries, selected from the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and part of the “British Online Archives” series from […]
Joel Larus Book Fund Established at Columbia University
This year, South Asia collection development at Columbia University was enriched by a new charitable book fund, for acquiring materials related to India’s foreign policy following independence, including issues of national security and maritime affairs. The Joel Larus Book Fund is being distributed from the Community Fund of Sarasota County on an annual basis. Joel Larus is […]
Book dances its way back to the Libraries after being checked out decades ago
A few months ago I received the following email: I recently came across a book from the Columbia Library, Coreografía Gauchesca by Jorge M.Furt, which was due back January 11, 1934. I suspect it was taken out by my uncle who was on the faculty at about that time, probably for consultation by his wife […]
Baltic and East European Modernist Collections
Since 2009 my colleagues and I have taken special pains to bolster Columbia’s holdings of rare (and in some cases unique) titles in Baltic & East European modernist materials from the dynamic interwar decades, as well as avant-garde (Surrealist, Expressionist, Dadaist, etc.) literature. We have secured a number of notable acquisitions—more than 150, by my […]
The Ukrainian Print Legacy of the “Surma” Book & Music Store
Earlier this summer, many of you no doubt saw the article by Noah Remnick “With Shop’s Closing, Little Ukraine Grows Smaller,” in the NYT of June 6. The article concerned the closing of Surma Book & Music Company. Founded by Ukrainian immigrant Myron Surmach some 98 years ago, the shop had occupied the East 7th […]